


Nights at Shell Cottage

by anxiousgoat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Battle of Hogwarts, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Fuck JKR, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hermione has nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, Luna has nightmares, POV Hermione Granger, POV Luna Lovegood, Romance, Sharing a Bed, Shell Cottage (Harry Potter), Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24723721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousgoat/pseuds/anxiousgoat
Summary: Hermione has just been brutally tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. Luna has just spent months in the cellar at Malfoy Manor. Now, they are about to spend several weeks sharing the smallest bedroom at Shell Cottage. Will they be able to come to terms with the trauma they've experienced, and will they be able to resolve the enormous differences in their personalities?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Luna Lovegood
Comments: 39
Kudos: 119





	1. Nights at Shell Cottage

**Author's Note:**

> Canon compliant except that Hermione and Ron aren't into each other romantically.
> 
> Thanks to Wellwick for reassuring me that the format of the story worked when I started writing it.

**the first night**

bellatrix is here and pain laughing screaming fury pain pain pain screaming and then fleur and bill and sleeping and bellatrix again and pain pain pain pain… .

**the second night**

bellatrix lestrange’s face is all she can see her eyes are full of her pain burns a flame and how is she not dead she’s screaming and she can’t stop but gentle arms fleur’s arms bill tips a potion down her throat and the pain is less luna tucked into a corner she never wants to sleep again but she’s drowsy already and there must have been something in that potion

**the third night**

bellatrix lestrange’s wand stabbed at her, stabbed at her, stabbed at her, and hermione screamed and fleur and bill rushed in and luna watched with big pale eyes, and why were the nights so painful? hermione cried in fleur’s warm hold until she fell asleep again

**the fourth night**

fleur was there as always, cradling Hermione in her arms and murmuring words of comfort. Hermione wept and apologised, though Fleur did not seem to mind and neither did Bill. They were so kind, much too kind. But the dreams never seemed as bad when she had fallen asleep in a pair of warm arms, so she leant against Fleur until she drifted off again.

**the fifth night**

Hermione was so aware that she must not scream that even in her dream she only let out a whimper when she saw the fury in Bellatrix’s eyes. But when the wand stabbed at her she couldn’t help it.

She woke, clapping a hand over her mouth, but Fleur and Bill were already there. Hermione pretended to fall asleep quickly so that they could leave her and go back to their bed. Luna gave her a small smile as they departed.

**The Sixth Night**

Hermione put a quieting charm on the room while Luna was in the bathroom.

Bellatrix Lestrange’s wand stabbed towards her yet again and she could only scream.

Then suddenly she could move again, and so she did, rolling desperately to one side. She landed with a painful thump which knocked the rest of the scream out of her lungs.

“Hermione?”

There was a calm, quiet voice that didn’t match what had just happened. It was dark in the room, and she was entangled in blankets, and Bellatrix Lestrange was nowhere near her.

“Luna?” she said. A moment later, a soft glow lit the room. Luna had lit the lamp.

Hermione lay there, eyes closed, her fingertips running over the rough blanket. Somehow, the sensation made her feel calmer, and she concentrated on it for a while. At last, the thundering of her heart slowed and she opened her eyes. Luna had sat down again, cross-legged on her sleeping bag and pillows, and was watching her. She didn’t look worried, just vaguely sympathetic.

“Sorry,” said Hermione.

Luna smiled as though she hadn’t been woken up in the early hours for the sixth night in a row.

“That’s all right,” she said. “Do you want me to get Fleur? Or Bill?”

“No!” said Hermione quickly. She shook her head. “No, please don’t. I – well, actually, I put a quieting charm on the room.”

Luna blinked.

“Oh.”

Hermione began to struggle out of the blankets, which had somehow become tightly wrapped around her. Luna watched.

“Why?” she said at last. Hermione paused in extracting her left leg from the cocoon.

“What?”

“Why did you put up a quieting charm?”

“Oh. I just felt bad, always waking them up.” She shook the blankets off at last, bundled them up, and pushed them onto the bed. “I’m sorry there isn’t space for me to have a room on my own. Maybe you could _silencio_ me, then it wouldn’t make a noise when I – you know.”

“No,” said Luna. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Right.” Hermione sat on the edge of the bed. “No, you’re right. If I keep flailing about and falling out of bed I’d still wake you up.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant that I’d rather know.”

“Know?” echoed Hermione, confused.

Luna got up and sat close beside her on the bed. She patted Hermione’s hand.

“Hermione,” she said patiently. “Down there in that cellar, I could hear you screaming. I heard lots of people screaming, actually, and I couldn’t do anything for most of them. Only Mr. Ollivander, and even then only a bit. If it helps you to have someone with you when you wake up and things are awful, I’d like it to be me.”

Luna’s hand had stayed on Hermione’s after she’d stopped patting it. Hermione looked down at them, Luna’s pale fingers resting gently on her darker ones. She had been planning to say, “Oh no, that isn’t fair on you,” or, “Honestly, once I’ve woken up I’m fine,” but what came out was,

“Thank you. I’d like that,” and she flushed.

“I thought you might,” said Luna. “I always did. Daddy used to come and sit with me until I went to sleep again.”

“You have nightmares too?”

“Oh yes. After my mother died. I saw it happen, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” whispered Hermione, horrified.

“It was rather dreadful,” said Luna, almost conversationally. “I dreamed about it for a long time. Then it wasn’t so bad, but when I was in that cellar, I – I – well, I’m glad Mr. Ollivander was there.”

Hermione turned to face her, squeezing both of Luna’s hands.

“I guess you don’t make as much noise when you dream as I do,” she said. “But if you wake up and want someone, you can wake me. I’d like to help you, too, if I can.”

Luna smiled at her.

“I will,” she said. “Thank you. We should go back to sleep now, though, don’t you think? You need to heal.”

“And so do you.”

They sat there for a moment longer, their hands linked. Then Luna gave one last squeeze, got up, and crawled back into her sleeping bag. Hermione straightened her blankets and got into bed. She must have fallen asleep almost immediately, because the next thing she saw was daylight reflecting off the bright red curtains, and the next thing she knew was that something had changed.

**The Seventh Night**

Something had changed, but the nightmare still came. Luna seated herself on the side of the bed and cuddled Hermione, then hummed odd tunes and stroked her forehead until she fell asleep again.

**The Eighth Night**

Hermione’s stomach twisted with guilt when she realised she’d woken Luna yet again, but Luna just smiled. And some time later, when Hermione opened her eyes to a gentle touch on her shoulder, it was her turn to smile and hold out her arms.

“Sorry,” whispered Luna. Hermione wrapped arms and blankets round her thin body, which shivered in the chilly breeze that was sweeping through the room, and held her close until her shaking ceased and her body relaxed.

**The Ninth Night**

Both of them woke, Hermione violently and Luna less so, and both were glad of the comfort the other gave them.

**The Tenth Night**

Hermione barely saw Luna during the days except when she, Harry and Ron came downstairs for meals. Luna worried because Hermione was spending so much time in the tiny, cramped room, but Hermione didn’t mind. It made her feel safer.

**The Eleventh Night**

It wasn’t the dreams that woke Hermione that night, but Luna’s hand on her shoulder. She pushed the blankets back, expecting to comfort her again, and realised that the room was unusually bright, not from the lamp but from the moon. Luna perched on the edge of the bed.

“I woke up,” she began. “I’d been dreaming again.”

Hermione reached out for her hand. Luna squeezed it and went on.

“But then I noticed the moon. It’s full tonight, and it’s not even cloudy for once. Usually I’d know, but I lost track of time in that cellar. Anyway, I thought I might go outside. There are things, rituals, just little ones. I thought doing one might help with all the – the feelings. I thought you might like to come too. But you don’t have to.” She made a face. “I probably shouldn’t have woken you up for this, should I?”

The look on Luna’s face brought to mind expressions Hermione had seen there before, often in reaction to something she herself had said.

“Of course you should have,” she said firmly. “I’d like that.”

After all, whatever odd ritual Luna had in mind probably wouldn’t do any harm. As they crept down the creaky stairs after dressing at Hermione’s insistence, she reflected that it might even be helpful. Hermione had never had much time for Luna at school. Her bizarre beliefs, her lack of interest in what anyone else thought of her, and her apparent inability to think rationally had all been completely infuriating.

“You can always take things off if you’re warm enough,” she pointed out when Luna protested the addition of shoes and cloaks to their layers. “But it’s cold out there.”

Luna poked her tongue out but complied, and Hermione stifled a giggle. She really ought to give Luna a proper chance. The fact that she herself had spent her entire life trying not to appear strange or eccentric shouldn’t make her despise a person who didn’t care about such things. Anyway, it wasn’t as though her efforts had done her any good; she’d barely had a single friend until the day she had almost been killed by a mountain troll in a Hogwarts toilet.

They let themselves out through the back door, and Luna towed her round the side of the house to collect some driftwood from the stack under the kitchen window. Hermione held out her arms to take it, then followed Luna out of the garden and onto the rocks at the cliff-edge.

She was beginning to feel slightly excited, an emotion she hadn’t experienced in several months. Creeping about in the middle of the night when it wasn’t for some life-or-death purpose was actually rather fun. Luna turned and beckoned.

“This is the perfect place!” she called. “Come on!”

Hermione hurried over and began to arrange the wood for a fire, but Luna’s beaming face was making her excitement turn to guilt. Luna had always seemed to be so alone at Hogwarts. Had she had any friends at all? Could she have been happy? And Hermione, who knew how it felt to be merely tolerated, hadn’t even bothered to do that much, had instead snapped at her constantly and refused to listen to even the mildest of her peculiar ideas.

“Now,” said Luna, who didn’t seem to have noticed Hermione’s worries. “We should light the fire together, so that there’s a bit of each of us in it. For balance, you know.”

Hermione looked at her, but Luna obviously wasn’t thinking about their history at all. Perhaps this wasn’t the time to think about it. She pulled her thoughts back to the fire, and the moments that passed as they held their wand tips together and said the spell in unison did feel oddly intimate. The flames danced up together, bright and strong.

“Now,” said Luna. “We make a circle. You do half and I’ll do half.”

“What kind of circle?” said Hermione doubtfully.

“I usually use a – no. You do as you want. The circle is for protection, and to mark the space out as being for us tonight. Something that can be easily removed and that doesn’t alter the earth it’s on. Do what you feel, and I’ll do what I feel. Ready?”

Slightly unnerved by this, Hermione hesitated. She knew that there was magic that was about feelings – that sort of magic had, indeed, saved Harry’s life when he was a baby. But all the magic Hermione knew how to do had rules and methods. It was, for want of a better word, scientific. You said certain words with a certain inflection, and moved your wand in a certain way, and you got predictable results. On the other hand, all she actually had to do right now was draw half a circle. She thought quickly and took a deep breath.

“Ready,” she said.

“Good. We’ll start here, and meet again at that pale bit that sticks up on the other side of the fire.”

Hermione flicked her wand and concentrated. The paint spell was simple but she hadn’t used it often. It worked perfectly, however, and she drew a careful semicircle in glowing gold.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” said Luna, as they met and joined their lines to make a perfect circle. Luna had conjured a cord of silver which sparkled in the light from the fire. She must have also stuck it to the rock or frozen it in place, because although for once it wasn’t cloudy, the wind was strong and ought to have blown the light cord away.

“So’s yours,” she said, and found herself smiling warmly at Luna, who took her hand again.

“Now we sit down by the fire and look at the moon and the stars.”

They did. After several minutes, Hermione spoke again.

“So, um, what’s the ritual?”

Luna looked at her.

“You think we should do more?”

“Oh no. At least, I just thought there was generally more to rituals.”

Luna smiled dreamily and looked upwards, the gold light of the fire and the silver light of the moon mingling across her face.

“It really depends on the ritual,” she said. “The ritual and the people who are doing it. If you feel that we should do more, we should.”

Hermione fell silent. She’d assumed that Luna had had something specific in mind, some actual ritual which existed for a particular purpose to achieve a tangible goal. Instead, they’d just drawn a circle round a fire and sat inside it staring at the sky. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, gazing out at the glinting waves.

It was very peaceful, though, and pleasant, sitting here beneath the full moon and the stars, the sea crashing against the cliffs far below and the wind gusting against them, making the fire dance wildly but, being magical, never go out. The fire and the layers of clothing kept her warm enough, though her face was chilled. Hermione let out a long, slow breath. Yes, this was nice.

She didn’t know how long they spent there. It didn’t matter, really. At some point they both lay down on their backs and Hermione felt around until she found Luna’s hand, twining their fingers together. How strange, she thought as her mind drifted, that she felt more relaxed now, lying on the hard rock with a cold wind tugging at her hair and clothes, than she had at any point since the escape from Malfoy Manor.

After another long stretch of time had passed, she shifted, rather stiffly, into a sitting position. Luna, who was either thinking along the same lines or was simply following her example, also sat up.

“Do you think,” Hermione began haltingly, “Or rather, I thought it might be nice if – if we said some – words?”

“I think that’s a lovely idea,” said Luna serenely. “What would you like to say?”

“I don’t know.” Hermione looked at her helplessly. “I don’t know what the right – the helpful words are.”

Luna looked at her, head on one side, for a little longer than Hermione felt comfortable with. She seemed to be thinking. At last she nodded.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s each of us say what we’re afraid of, and then something that we want, and then we can make a vow together, to carry us forward.”

“That sounds right,” said Hermione, relieved. She hesitated again. “Um, do you want to go first?”

“I’m afraid of anything happening to Daddy,” said Luna. “Or to my friends. And I’m afraid of being locked up again. I’m afraid of being so dreadfully helpless.” She glanced up and met Hermione’s eyes with a small smile. “Now you.”

“I’m afraid,” said Hermione, and stalled. She swallowed and looked into the bright, flickering light of the fire. “I’m afraid of being tortured again. And of letting everybody down. And of – of failing.”

She pressed her lips together, still staring into the fire. It made her eyes hurt.

A cool hand slipped into hers.

“That was good,” said Luna’s voice. “Now we say something we want. I want us all to be safe.”

Hermione looked at her gratefully.

“Me too,” she said. “I want to win this war.”

Luna nodded. They squeezed each other’s hands.

“And now,” said Luna, “We make a vow. Do you have any ideas?”

Hermione bit her lip and thought. They were making this vow together, so it must be something that fitted them both. To win the war was something she wanted, but it didn’t seem right for their vow. To keep their friends safe? But what if they couldn’t? Something bigger, and yet smaller, was what was needed. Something that she could remember and hold onto.

“To always do our best?” she suggested. “Or, to always be trying. To – to always walk forwards?” She floundered and looked to Luna, who was nodding.

“To walk forwards,” she repeated. “I like that. Hm. How about, we vow to walk into the light?”

“Oh yes,” said Hermione in relief. That was exactly what she’d meant, she just hadn’t been able to put the words together. “That’s perfect, Luna. Thank you.”

Luna’s face creased into a smile.

“Let’s say it together.”

And they did.

**The Twelfth Night**

It was the best night’s sleep Hermione had had since Bellatrix Lestrange had tortured her at Malfoy Manor. She dreamed, but when she woke she didn’t scream. She didn’t wake Luna, either. Soon, she fell asleep again.

**The Thirteenth Night**

Hermione woke, drenched in sweat, heart racing, and struggled into a sitting position. She rested her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, and wished the dreams would stop. She didn’t hurt as much as before, perhaps because the pain that had lingered from her prolonged exposure to the cruciatus curse was finally almost gone, but the terror and panic were as bad as ever. She hated it.

She sat there, shivering even with her blankets wrapped around her, for a while. She wished Luna would let her shut the windows at night. Fresh air was lovely in the summer but this was the coldest April they’d had in years and rain kept blowing in, though it was Luna who mostly got wet since her cushions and sleeping bag were right under the window.

At last she decided that she was being foolish and should go back to sleep. She started to wriggle back down under the blankets, but just as she reached for her wand to cast a warming charm, she saw Luna jerk in the darkness, and heard her gasp. Immediately Hermione slipped out of bed and knelt on the floor.

“Are you all right?” she whispered. Luna’s pale, trembling hands reached out and grasped her.

“Just a dream,” she said. Her hands were like ice, so Hermione cast a warming charm to surround them both.

“Oh, that’s better,” said Luna. “Thank you, Hermione.”

“No worries.”

She squirmed into a more comfortable position and rubbed Luna’s hands gently until they started to warm up.

“Sing to me?” whispered Luna, whose eyes had drifted shut again.

Hermione was no singer, but she warbled an old muggle folk song that her mother had sung to her when she was little. Luna soon fell asleep again, a small smile on her face.

**The Fourteenth Night**

Hermione screamed and rolled instinctively. This time she landed on her feet and it only took a few seconds for her to realise where she was. She leant against the wall, panting, and saw the dark shape that was Luna getting up. Then Luna’s arms were around her, a bit damp from the drizzle, but comforting. Hermione leaned her head on Luna’s shoulder. They stood that way for some time until, without needing to speak, they both returned to their beds.

**The Fifteenth Night**

Bellatrix Lestrange’s wand was thrust towards her for what felt like the millionth time, and Hermione screamed and screamed and screamed. When she woke up, tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Hermione, dear, it’s all right, it’s all right,” came Luna’s voice. Her hands brushed the tears off Hermione’s face and then she drew her close, murmuring comfort and rubbing Hermione’s back in a very soothing way.

“I’m sorry, Luna.”

“Don’t be silly.” Luna’s cheek was cool against hers as she rocked Hermione gently. Hermione put her arms around Luna’s waist and let her tears flow, Luna’s body in its cotton pyjamas acting like an anchor to comfort and ground her. She ran her fingertips over the bumps of Luna’s spine, and Luna’s back arched slightly. Hermione froze.

“Sorry.” After a while she tried to explain. “That was the worst dream I’ve had in a while. I could feel her wand. The pain. It felt like I was on fire.”

Luna’s arms tightened. At last the tears stopped coming and Hermione drew away a little.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, mopping her face with the corner of the blanket. “Oh Luna, you always seem so chilly. Why don’t we shut the windows for the rest of the night?”

“No!”

She had rarely heard Luna’s voice sound so sharp. The last time must have been – oh hell – back in her fifth year when Hermione had criticised The Quibbler. Honestly, she thought, how completely unnecessary to have done that.

“Why not?” she said, making her voice as gentle as she could.

Luna was silent for a while. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t like it,” she said. Hermione, feeling that there must be more to it than this, said nothing, and Luna finally looked up and met her eyes. “I like to feel the fresh air, even the rain. I hated it in that cellar so much, Hermione. It was dark all the time, and I could never see the stars or the moon, or feel grass, or the wind, or hear the birds, or smell the flowers. It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I just can’t – I’m sorry, I know it’s cold and horrible, but I just –”

“Oh, Luna!” Hermione pulled her closer, wrapped her up in blankets and her arms, and squeezed her tightly. “It doesn’t matter at all. That’s what warming charms are for. And drying charms.”

“Thank you.” Luna leaned against her, head resting on Hermione’s shoulder. After a few minutes she spoke again. “There weren’t even any wrackspurts in there.”

Hermione closed her eyes briefly. _Don’t you dare mock her_ , she told herself fiercely.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, patting Luna’s back, and felt Luna laugh against her shoulder. “What?”

Luna lifted her head and drew back so that she could look into Hermione’s face.

“Hermione,” she said, still laughing. “You don’t even believe in wrackspurts.”

Hermione flushed. It was true, of course, but really, couldn’t Luna appreciate that she’d been making a serious effort to be nice? Then she laughed at herself.

“I know,” she said. “But you do.”

“It’s because they’re real, you know,” said Luna, looking her straight in the eye. “Nargles, too, they’re everywhere.” Hermione wrinkled her nose before she could stop herself.

“Then why does nobody else see them?” she demanded.

“Wrackspurts are invisible. And not everybody can see nargles,” said Luna. “Most don’t bother trying. I’ve seen them ever since I was little. It took Mummy a while to be able to, but after a while she managed it.”

Hermione opened her mouth to say that that was ridiculous, then closed it again. After all, she herself hadn’t been able to see thestrals until she was sixteen. It surely wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

“Tell me about them.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Please?”

But Luna was frowning at her.

“Why?”

“Because I want to know.”

“But why?”

Hermione blinked. She wasn’t used to people like Luna. She was so… straightforward. She said what she thought and demanded the truth in return. Hermione preferred the truth, of course, but she would fudge it when necessary. Luna seemed to see right through her; it was a little unnerving.

“Because,” she said at last. “I’ve been learning, over the last few years, but especially the last few months, that there’s a lot more to magic, and the world, than I ever realised. I used to think it was all about books and facts, but it’s so much more. You already know that, though, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Luna looked surprised, though Hermione wasn’t sure whether it was because that wasn’t the answer she’d expected or because she hadn’t realised other people didn’t know that. Hermione nodded.

“You know it more than anyone I’ve ever met, except maybe Dumbledore. In a different way, though. Anyway, I’d like to know. I’d like to learn. If you’d like to teach me, that is.” She stopped, paused, and added, “And I’m sorry about how I used to treat you. I didn’t respect the way you thought about the world and I mocked you for it. It was mean and unfair. I’m sorry.”

Luna’s pale blue eyes filled with tears and she leant into Hermione again, their arms going round each other.

“That’s very, very kind of you,” she said into Hermione’s shoulder. “I appreciate it. Of course I’ll tell you about nargles.”

**The Sixteenth Night**

Having considered the matter during the day, Hermione asked Luna whether she’d like to have a light on while they slept. Luna smiled at her but refused.

“It isn’t the darkness so much as the being closed in,” she explained. “But thank you.”

She woke Hermione some hours later, and Hermione sang her back to sleep again.

**The Seventeenth Night**

Hermione crashed to the floor, landing on her elbow. She’d thought Bellatrix Lestrange was right there in their room and had flung herself out of bed to escape. Fortunately Luna seemed to have quite a wide knowledge of healing spells and could tell her that it was not badly injured.

“I got rather a lot of practice at healing spells last term,” she explained. “So did we all. Death Eaters as teachers, you know.”

Hermione hadn’t known and it sent a chill down her spine that was nothing to do with the temperature of the room. She fell asleep again with a renewed determination to make their plan for breaking into Gringott’s as perfect and foolproof as she possibly could. The sooner Voldemort was defeated, the better.

**The Eighteenth Night**

They both woke again, and each comforted the other back to sleep. It was almost routine by this time.

**The Nineteenth Night**

Bellatrix’s face loomed over her, filled with hatred, but for some reason Hermione couldn’t scream and couldn’t move. Over and over again the wand stabbed at her and she couldn’t stop it. It was Luna’s nightmare that saved her.

**The Twentieth Night**

Hermione woke up in the chilly, damp, darkness, and lay there for a while, listening to the wind whistling round the corners of Shell Cottage, the sea nearby, and Luna’s soft, even breathing.

**The Twenty-First Night**

She threw herself out of bed to escape Bellatrix yet again, and fell right over Luna in her sleeping bag. Luckily Luna seemed to think it was very funny, but even so, once they had stopped laughing, Hermione said,

“Maybe we should swap places. After all, the pain from the curse has gone now. I don’t really need the bed, and I keep on falling out of it.”

Luna went into another fit of giggles.

“The cushions aren’t really very comfortable,” she added after she had sobered up. “But I suppose all this falling out of bed can’t be doing you any good.”

“Exactly,” said Hermione. “We’ll try it.”

**The Twenty-Second Night**

Hermione woke up to broad daylight, and saw that the bed was empty. They had both slept through the night.

**The Twenty-Third Night**

Hermione was in the throes of the dream when Luna’s cool hand touched her cheek, waking her.

“Get off me!” she shrieked, and flung a fist out. Luna dodged it at the same time as Hermione realised where she was. “Oh god, Luna, I’m sorry. I thought you were her. Come here, you look freezing.”

**The Twenty-Fourth Night**

She screamed herself awake and found herself on the hard floor, the cushions scattered around her. Luna scrambled out of bed.

“I’m so sorry,” said Hermione wearily.

“Hush. Look, why don’t we both sleep in the bed?”

Hermione stared at her.

“What?”

“I know those cushions aren’t particularly comfortable,” explained Luna. “It can’t be helping your nightmares. Maybe we’ll both sleep better if we’re together.”

It made a certain amount of sense, but Hermione still found herself looking doubtfully at the bed.

“It isn’t very big,” she said.

“We’ll manage.”

And they did. Luna settled herself on her side, and Hermione tucked herself in behind her on the outside of the bed, in the hope that if she felt the need to escape Bellatrix in her dreams again she wouldn’t end up attacking Luna. There were plenty of blankets for both of them, and it somehow seemed quite natural to drape her arm across Luna’s waist. Luna twisted her fingers into Hermione’s, and they went to sleep like that.

**The Twenty-Fifth Night**

What they hadn’t thought about the previous night was that Luna was a much earlier riser than Hermione; she hadn’t been able to avoid waking Hermione when she got up. So that night Hermione slept next to the wall and Luna curled around her so closely that Hermione could feel her body moving as she breathed.

Hermione assured Luna in as casual a voice as she could manage that she didn’t mind the swap in the least, but actually it felt wonderful. Luna’s warm body was at her back, her breath on her neck, her arm tucked around Hermione in a gentle embrace. Hermione had not felt so safe since she was a little girl. She almost wanted to stay awake so that she could enjoy the sensation, but she fell asleep within minutes.

**The Twenty-Sixth Night**

Hermione dreamt again of Bellatrix Lestrange, but when she woke it was quietly. Luna’s arm still held her, and Luna’s slow, regular breathing calmed her. It was not long before she fell asleep again.

**The Twenty-Seventh Night**

Hermione woke, not, for once, from a nightmare, but as a result of Luna’s body tensing up. She turned over and realised that Luna was still asleep, though she had started breathing more quickly. A moment later her eyes snapped open, but Hermione was already whispering to her and soothing her, singing her back to sleep.

**The Twenty-Eighth Night**

Hermione handed Luna a steaming mug of hot chocolate as she came back into the bedroom, pyjama-clad, and closed the door behind her. Luna raised her eyebrows.

“Drinking hot chocolate after you’ve brushed your teeth?” she said. “I’m surprised at you, Hermione.”

Hermione held up her other hand.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got tooth-flossing stringmints for afterwards.”

Luna giggled and sipped the chocolate.

“So how are you feeling?” said Hermione. Even after Remus had left, they had continued to celebrate the birth of baby Teddy late into the night. The atmosphere in Shell Cottage had been growing tenser since they’d arrived and the celebrations had been a relief to them all. But Hermione hadn’t forgotten the departure of Mr. Ollivander earlier in the afternoon, and she certainly hadn’t missed the sorrow in Luna’s face as she bade him farewell.

“Sad,” said Luna. “Rather lonely. We were alone in that cellar together for months. He almost feels like family now, you know?”

Hermione nodded. It wasn’t the same, but nine months living in a tent with and barely speaking to anyone except Harry and Ron had created a deep bond between them which even Ron’s temporary departure had not, ultimately, broken. The two boys felt like siblings to her now.

“Are you going to be staying here, then?”

“For the time being,” said Luna. “Fleur asked me and Dean if we’d mind. There’s plenty of space here for two extra, and when more people have to go into hiding it means they can send them straight to Muriel’s.”

“Of course, that does make sense,” admitted Hermione. “I’m sorry it means you’ll be so out of things, though.”

Luna smiled faintly.

“I think Fleur and Bill think that we’re better off out of it. The Death Eaters want me as leverage against Daddy and Dean’s Muggleborn, or as good as. They have to let you three go off and do your thing, everybody knows you’re the ones who are going to defeat You-Know-Who, but they can at least keep us as far from danger as possible.”

Hermione nodded again.

“I’m glad you’re staying. I think Fleur likes having you around.”

“I like it here too. It feels safe. And I’ll see Mr. Ollivander again when this is all over.”

“You will,” said Hermione. “We’ll keep him safe for you, I swear.”

“Your plans are nearly ready, aren’t they?” said Luna.

Hermione froze in the act of lifting her mug to take a drink.

“What?” she said.

“You’re a terrible liar,” said Luna.

Hermione’s throat constricted. Bellatrix’s furious face and stabbing wand flashed in front of her eyes, the mouth that screamed at her to _tell the truth_ , and she jumped as hot chocolate slopped over the rim of her mug onto her hands. Heart racing, she could only stare at Luna, who was already looking stricken.

“Oh, Hermione, I’m sorry.” She grabbed her wand and cleaned up the spilt drink. “Are your hands hurt?”

Hermione blinked several times, then, slowly, looked down at her hands, still clutching the mug, white-knuckled.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s cooled down quite a bit.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Luna again. “That was a very thoughtless and hurtful thing for me to say.”

“It’s fine. I know you were joking. Silly of me.”

Luna touched her knee tentatively.

“No,” she said. “Not silly. I ought to have thought about what I was saying. You were so very brave at Malfoy Manor. We could hear everything you said. You lied while she was torturing you. Not everybody can do that.”

Hermione took a large gulp of chocolate, the comforting liquid warming her throat, and managed to smile at Luna.

“I’d planned it all out in my mind,” she said. “I’m actually awful under pressure, and mostly I’m terrible at lying, too. But we’ve had the sword a few months, so I had time to think about it. I’ve been doing that all year. Planning for everything that could possibly happen. Repeating it all to myself over and over and over, every night, so that I can maybe do the right thing in an emergency.”

Luna shuffled closer to her on the bed, holding her mug carefully, and patted Hermione’s leg.

“You were wonderful,” she said.

“I don’t know that I could have held out much longer.” Just the thought of it made her feel sick. If she had given in –

“You held out long enough,” said Luna.

Hermione smiled at her, already feeling much calmer, and finished her chocolate.

“Thanks,” she said. “You’re very good at making me feel better.”

“And,” went on Luna. “The fact remains that it’s obvious that you and Harry and Ron and Griphook have been planning something, locked up in here every day, and that you’re almost finished. I can see the change in you. All of you, but especially you.”

Hermione felt her face grow warm. Especially her? What did that mean?

“Yes,” she said, flustered. “Fine, you’re right. We’re planning to leave on Friday, as long as everything goes right.”

“Oh,” said Luna softly. “That’s so soon.”

“The sooner the better.” Hermione sighed and pushed her hair back. “We ought to have gone ages ago but it took longer than I expected to agree on all the details. And we’ve had to practice – things.”

She realised suddenly that she was giving Luna too many details and closed her mouth. Luna looked as though she knew exactly what Hermione was thinking.

“You don’t want to tell me.”

“I really can’t, Luna. I’m sorry.”

“What if I could help?”

Hermione bit her lip. What if Luna _could_ help? She was much more knowledgeable and thoughtful than Hermione had ever given her credit for before, and her strengths lay in such different areas from Hermione’s own, and from Harry’s and Ron’s. She could be a great boon to them. On the other hand, they had already been at Shell Cottage for almost a month, and the longer they delayed, the more people died. Including Luna in their plans would mean spending extra time working out how to fit her into the Gringott’s break-in, and they couldn’t afford it.

Perhaps, she thought, if that went well, she would bring it up with Harry and Ron. Even if it was all supposed to be a dead secret, telling one extra person might not be so bad. Dumbledore probably wouldn’t have liked it, and Harry wouldn’t want to put Luna in danger, and Ron wouldn’t think that she had any value at all, but Hermione might be able to persuade them.

“I’m sorry, Luna,” she said, and she meant it. “There isn’t time to bring you into our plans for Friday.”

“I understand.” But Luna looked sad and a little hurt.

“It’s not because I don’t trust you or think you can help. I do. It’s too late for Friday, but if we find ourselves back here again for some reason, well, then things might be different. I’m sorry, I know it isn’t much of a promise. It’s just that things are – complicated.”

The hurt had gone from Luna’s face, much to Hermione’s relief.

“I do understand,” she said. “I just wish I could do something. Hermione, you will stay safe, won’t you? Look after yourself?”

“’Course I will,” said Hermione. “I always do, you know that.”

They both laughed.

“I mean it, though,” Luna persisted. “I care a lot about you. I want you to still be here when everything’s over.”

Hermione’s heart began to thump again. She reached to put her mug down on the floor, then turned to face Luna. They were sitting very close together, Luna’s leg pressed against hers, Luna’s hand still resting on her thigh.

“I care about you, too,” she said. Her voice was oddly croaky. She met Luna’s eyes and found that she didn’t want to look away.

Luna kissed her.

Hermione’s body reacted instinctively, leaning in, a hand landing on Luna’s hip, the other hand at her cheek.

She had kissed people before, of course, but kissing Luna was different.

Better.

Perhaps it was because she cared more – had seen Luna in her worst moments – had been seen by her in her own worst moments – had slept in her arms for the past few nights. But Luna’s hand was pushing back Hermione’s hair, and her mouth was opening Hermione’s, and Hermione decided to stop thinking and concentrate on kissing.

**The Twenty-Ninth Night**

The kissing was as wonderful as it had been the previous night, and Hermione felt a rush of happiness as they finally lay down together to sleep.

**The Thirtieth Night**

Two full nights of sleep in a row was an extraordinary thing, especially when Hermione was dreading Friday so much. It wasn’t just that they had to rob what was arguably the most secure bank in the world and steal an incredibly dangerous magical object. Something strange and wondrous was happening between herself and Luna, and she didn’t want it to stop. Well, she supposed, she, Harry and Ron would just have to defeat Voldemort as quickly as they possibly could. Then they could all get back to their lives.

**The Thirty-First Night**

That night, she woke screaming again, but somehow the comfort that Luna gave her made it feel as though it hardly mattered.

**The Thirty-Second Night**

It had arrived: her last night at Shell Cottage. She, Harry and Ron had spent the day going meticulously over the plan to rob Gringott’s, determined not to let it fall apart the way their infiltration of the Ministry of Magic had. There was a huge number of variables, though, so many things, small and large, that could go wrong and ruin the whole thing. Hermione wondered whether Harry and Ron were as anxious and sleepless as she was herself.

The weather, at least, had finally warmed up, so the room was quite comfortable even with the window flung wide open. Hermione was sitting on their bed with Luna. They leant against the wall side by side, very close together, but they weren’t talking. It was making Hermione’s stomach churn unhappily. She glanced yet again at Luna, whose eyes were fixed on the distant horizon. She took a deep breath. At least she had something definite to say to break the horrible silence.

“Luna?”

“Mm?” Luna still didn’t move or look at her. Hermione’s stomach sank further.

“Luna, are you angry with me?” Hermione’s face grew hot. Fuck, why had she said that? Idiot. People hated it when you asked questions like that. But Luna’s whole body had turned towards her, her mouth open in surprise.

“Of course not!” she said. Now that she was looking into Luna’s eyes, Hermione realised that they were filled with tears. She unwrapped her arms from around her drawn-up legs, and squeezed Luna’s hand.

“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m a fool. You weren’t talking, and, well, I was just worried.”

“I was sad,” said Luna. She rested her head on Hermione’s shoulder. “I’m not angry, don’t worry. I don’t get angry very often.”

Hermione exhaled. She’d really been ridiculously tense. She still was, rather.

“I know,” she said. “I’m so nervous anyway, and I forgot that you’re not Harry or Ron. Well, Ron. He always stops talking to you if he’s really angry with you, and I hate it.”

“If I’m ever angry with you,” said Luna, her thumb running over the sensitive palm of Hermione’s hand in a way that made Hermione’s heart beat faster. “I promise I’ll tell you.”

“Thanks,” whispered Hermione. She shifted slightly to face Luna, tilted her face up with her free hand, and kissed her. There were several more minutes of silence which were far more pleasurable than the previous ones had been.

But Hermione’s request still weighed on her mind and she pulled back sooner than she would have liked to.

“I have to ask you something,” she said. “And I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”

“Dear me,” murmured Luna, sitting back on her heels and raising her eyebrows. Hermione grinned uneasily and extracted a thick parchment envelope from under the pillow. She held it up so that Luna could see her own name written on the outside.

“This is charmed,” she said. “So that if Harry and Ron and I all die, it will alert you and unseal itself. You see, we three are the only ones who know how to defeat You-Know-Who.”

Luna’s eyes widened so far that they seemed about to pop right out of her head. If she hadn’t been saying something incredibly frightening and serious, Hermione might have laughed.

“It’s not just a matter of being good enough to duel him or something like that,” she continued. “There is a prophecy involved, but mostly it’s because You-Know-Who’s done things that mean he can’t be killed in the usual way.”

“Can’t be killed,” repeated Luna faintly. Hermione grimaced.

“He can eventually, but right now? No. There are a number of very specific and difficult things that have to be done first. We’ve done some of them already, and we’re planning to do another one tomorrow, if everything goes well.”

“Why do only the three of you know?” said Luna.

“Dumbledore wanted it that way. In some ways I think he’s wrong, but in other ways – I don’t know. It’s very dangerous. If something went wrong – actually, they have gone wrong before and we only just escaped alive. If that happens again, or if he finds out what we’re doing –”

She could not repress a shudder. The thought of Voldemort’s wrath if he discovered that his Horcruxes were known and being destroyed was terrifying. Luna’s eyes were still fixed on her, her face solemn and her body very still, as though she was absorbing not only every word, but every thought in Hermione’s mind.

“The other reason is that it’s very dark. Really, really dark. Actually, I’m the only one who knows all the details. I – I wouldn’t want to force that knowledge on anyone, and it’s not the sort of magic that just anyone should be allowed to know about. I’ve written a summary, it’s in here, but you don’t have to read it. If you do decide you’d be better off having the information, burn those pages afterwards. I trust you with that stuff, but it mustn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

Luna nodded.

“I’ll do that,” she said. Hermione smiled at her briefly and plunged on.

“The thing is, because we’re the only ones who have all the information, and we’re in so much danger, someone else ought to know how to defeat him. We’ve nearly died already, too many times, and it’s just getting more dangerous. I want you to take over if we die.”

She stopped. Luna was still watching her intently, her head tilted to one side a little.

“Why me?”

Hermione blinked, but the question was a fair one. Things had changed a lot between them in the last few weeks, but she hadn’t exactly given Luna reason to think she valued her while they were at school.

“Lots of reasons,” she said, trying to show in her voice how much she meant it. “I trust you, for one thing. I trust you to understand what needs to be done, and why, and I trust you to make good decisions. To get the job done. And more than that, I respect you.”

“You do realise who you’re saying this to, don’t you?” said Luna. Her voice was teasing, but Hermione thought there was a thread of uncertainty running through it. “I’m the person who believes in wrackspurts and the Rotfang Conspiracy, remember?”

A snort of laughter escaped Hermione before she could stop it.

“These things aren’t mutually exclusive,” she said. “And I remember exactly who I’m talking to, thanks. The person who believed Harry when he said that You-Know-Who was back. The person who joined the DA and worked incredibly hard in every session. The person who got Harry’s story – the truth – out so that everybody who wanted to could hear it. You stood guard so that Harry could talk to Sirius. You didn’t just come to the Department of Mysteries with us that day, but you made it possible for us all to get there, Luna, and then you fought the Death Eaters, and you fought them again the next year when they got into the castle. You helped to lead the rebellion at Hogwarts this year, and then you spent all those months in the Malfoys’ cellar, and somehow you’re still you. I know exactly who I’m saying all this to.”

Luna was blinking away tears.

“Thank you, Hermione,” she said. “That is so very, very kind of you.”

“Every word of it is the truth,” said Hermione fiercely. “You’re one of the bravest, cleverest, most competent people I’ve ever met, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather hand this on to if I die. And it’s more than that. You think outside the box. I can’t, and Ron won’t try, and Harry can but mostly doesn’t. You won’t be a second best, you know. You have whole other strengths that we don’t, and I know you can win.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever said so many nice things to me in a row,” Luna observed. “But of course I’ll take over if I have to. I shall be proud to.”

“Thank you,” said Hermione. Luna took the envelope, fingered it for a moment, then placed it carefully on the chair beside the bed.

“You aren’t going to be coming back for me after whatever you’re doing today, are you?”

This was the part that Hermione had been dreading most of all.

“No,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to have you come, but then I realised that this was much more important. Having someone in reserve, who will be kept safe for when they’re needed – if they’re needed – that’s essential. The absolute most important thing is that someone takes down You-Know-Who.”

“Yes,” said Luna. “I do understand. I almost wish I didn’t, though.”

“I know,” said Hermione. “I almost wish I hadn’t thought of it.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“But I hope,” added Luna, a sudden sharp note in her voice. “That you’ll do your very best not to die, because I would be extremely put out if you did.”

Hermione laughed, though she felt more like crying.

“Oh, I will,” she said. “I promise. I will do my utmost to defeat You-Know-Who as quickly as possible and then come back here and be with you. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this now, when I could be dead this time tomorrow, but I like you so much, Luna. I want to spend more time with you, and get to know you better, and – and learn with you.”

“Oh yes,” said Luna, beaming. “We could hunt the Crumple-Horned Snorkack together!”

There was a small pause, and then they both burst out laughing at the same moment.

“I might even enjoy that,” admitted Hermione, pulling herself together. She drew Luna towards her and kissed her lips hard. Her skin was soft and cool as always, but this time Hermione wanted more. She kissed along Luna’s jaw, then down her neck, lips, tongue and teeth eliciting little sounds of pleasure from Luna.

“Is this all right?” she said against Luna’s throat.

“Oh, yes,” breathed Luna again. “Just like that, please.”

Hermione administered a kiss to Luna’s collarbone, then raised her head again.

“I mean it, Luna. I want you, all of you. Tonight. Now.”

“Ah,” said Luna. Her hands were sliding Hermione’s pyjama top up, and Hermione’ skin was already tingling with desire.

“If – if you feel the same way,” she gasped, as Luna’s fingertips brushed her breast.

“I would like that,” said Luna, quietly, her warm breath tickling Hermione’s ear. “Very much indeed.”


	2. The Thirty-Third Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luna is left behind at Shell Cottage - but not for long. The thirty-third night will prove to be the longest and hardest of them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okayyyy so it's been over two months since the first chapter. I'm so sorry! The third chapter is already drafted and just needs to be edited, so it shouldn't be too long before it's up as well. Definitely not two months!

Luna stood at the window of the smallest bedroom. It was open, as always, and the breeze that skimmed over her bare arms and face was warmer than it had been for the last few weeks.

That same wind was lifting Hermione’s hair as, with Griphook at her side, she crossed the lawn towards the boys. Or should she call it Bellatrix’s hair? No. Luna hadn’t exactly liked the sensation of seeing Hermione looking out at her from Bellatrix’s grim face, but she was still Hermione. Not the body, perhaps, but the way she sat and stood and spoke and kissed was all Hermione.

The way she waved her wand, too. Luna tried to discern what she was doing with it, but it was hard to tell at this distance. Changing Harry’s appearance, perhaps, since he was even more recognisable than Hermione. Would anyone really believe for a moment that a figure so obviously Hermione Granger was actually Bellatrix Lestrange? But Griphook was climbing onto Harry’s back, Hermione was flinging the invisibility cloak over them, and a moment later all four had vanished from sight. Luna let out a long, slow, breath and turned away from the window.

It was still not even seven in the morning. Fleur, Bill and Dean were all still sleeping, and Luna felt a little lonely now that Hermione was gone. She went out onto the cliff and spread-eagled herself beneath the enormous bright sky in the place where she and Hermione had lit their gold and silver fire under the full moon. Later came breakfast, the four of them sitting around a table which was suddenly too large for them, and then she and Fleur went into the garden while Bill and Dean cleared up.

After the first few days, they had all settled into their own routines. Hermione, Harry and Ron shut themselves up in the smallest bedroom with Griphook, planning. Bill worked painstakingly on a small extension to the cottage. Dean divided his attention between all of them and his sketchpad. Fleur and Luna worked, day after day, in the garden, and Garrick Ollivander, once he was strong enough, would lie in a deck chair nearby, sometimes dozing and sometimes contributing to their conversation.

Today, they were planting. It had taken a while to get to this point because nobody had lived at Shell Cottage permanently for over a decade and Fleur and Luna had spent more than three weeks getting rid of the weeds, brambles, and vicious magical plants that had taken over the garden. After that they had had to plan out the garden and prepare the ground. But now, it was ready.

At least the digging was pretty easy with magic, which meant that they could concentrate on the planting. You could do that with magic, but it was finicky and time-consuming because the tiny plants were so fragile. Fleur and Luna both found it easier and safer to use their hands.

It was strange to work in the garden without the sound of Garrick’s gentle snoring and occasional remarks, knowing that Hermione wasn’t just a few yards away and they’d be able to talk again tonight. But the smell of the freshly turned earth and the feel of the cool soil and the soft little plants against Luna’s skin were pleasant and soothing as the sun moved across the sky overhead and the coastal breeze blew in their faces. Fleur liked to plant her seedlings in neat rows, like schoolchildren out on a trip. Luna planted hers by instinct, placing each one where her heart told her it would flourish. Between the two of them, they achieved a casual, scattered charm.

They finished the first flowerbed that afternoon and Luna stood by as Fleur sent a wide spray of water out of her wand, watering all the little seedlings. She shook out her stiff and aching muscles, and drew a grubby hand across her sweaty brow.

“Are you too hot, Luna?” said Fleur, and turned her wand in Luna’s direction. She shrieked and danced out of the way, but Fleur was after her. Luna grabbed her own wand from behind her ear and pointed it at Fleur, calling out the incantation. Fleur squealed and ran after Luna even faster.

“What the hell?”

Bill and Dean had come round the side of the house to see what all the noise was about. Without hesitation or consultation, Luna and Fleur swung round to point their wands at them, and then pursued them around the house when they fled, only to find Bill and Dean waiting for them, wands outstretched.

Eventually, they all ended up collapsed on the lawn, sodden and laughing. Luna lay back, giggling and trying to catch her breath, not caring that her head was in a puddle. The sky was still bright blue, with just a few wispy, cotton-wool clouds floating across it, and the breeze was almost warm, and she wondered what Hermione was doing. Was she fighting for her life while Luna ran about playing water games? Was she lying dead somewhere, even now?

Luna sat up and shook the water out of her hair. There was no point in thinking like that. Hermione could just as easily be dancing on the remains of You-Know-Who’s body. The thought made her smile. Whatever Hermione was doing, she would be doing it to the best of her ability, and that was the most anybody could ever do.

Luna turned to ask Fleur whether she wanted to start on the next bed this afternoon or stop for the day, but a movement in the rose bush that sprawled over the white garden wall caught her eye. She stopped, watching the spot, and a moment later a tiny, mischievous face appeared from behind one of the roses, staring at her curiously. Luna gave the nargle a little wave.

“Who is there?” said Fleur, turning so sharply that the nargle ducked back behind the rose.

“Not a person,” said Luna. “Just a nargle.”

“What is a nargle?” Fleur stared at her, scrunching her nose up in confusion.

“Just look and wait a moment,” murmured Luna. Sure enough, the curious little creature peered around the rose again after just a few seconds.

“Ahhh!” said Fleur, blowing it a tiny kiss. “Le volutin.”

“What are you both talking about?” said Dean, who was peering at the roses and frowning.

“It’s gone now,” said Luna as the nargle suddenly shot up and over the wall, disappearing from view.

“I didn’t see anything, either,” said Bill.

“You don’t?” said Fleur. “Well, I will teach you next time I see one.”

“I’ve never met anyone before who could just see them,” said Luna. “Did someone teach you or could you just do it?”

Fleur shrugged.

“I am not entirely human myself. It is easier for me than for most.” She heaved a sigh and got to her feet. “Time to start the dinner. Dean, would you like to help me? I can teach you how to make profiteroles.” Dean followed her eagerly and they went inside, Fleur drying them both off with her wand as they went.

Dinner was, as always, excellent, though the table still felt too large. Afterwards Luna went for a walk, barefoot along the cliff-edge with the sheep-cropped grass rough against the soles of her feet and the gulls shrieking overhead. She couldn’t go too far, of course. The countryside around Shell Cottage was quiet, with farms and villages few and far between, but it still wasn’t safe to be outside the fidelius charm for too long. Luna turned before the lights of Shell Cottage disappeared behind a slight rise, and ambled back.

Fleur was emerging from the bathroom in a very pretty blue silk dressing gown as Luna let herself in through the back door. She took a lengthy shower herself, then made a cup of chamomile tea and, at last, was unable to avoid returning to her very empty bedroom.

Luna put her mug down and sat on the edge of the bed. Almost every moment she’d spent in this room had included Hermione. Sleeping, talking, comforting one another after a nightmare. Kissing, and then last night, when they had explored each other’s bodies in whole new ways. The room was simply wrong without her.

But there was nothing Luna could do about that now. She put her pyjamas on and got into bed. If she was sleeping, she wouldn’t be missing Hermione and perhaps she’d even dream about her. That would be nice. She closed her eyes.

Sleep had not completely taken her when she was jolted back into wakefulness by a sharp heat on her breast. Sitting up and fumbling in her pyjama top, she realised it was the fake galleon that Hermione had enchanted back in fourth year so that the DA could send messages in secret. Luna had hung hers on a slender chain around her neck.

She had just extracted the coin when the door burst open.

“You too?” said Dean waving his coin aloft.

“Yes.” Luna’s eyes focused and she read the brief message.

THEYRE HERE REVOLUTION BATTLE ALL COME APP INSIDE HOGS HEAD NL

“Finally!” said Dean, grinning at her. “We’re gonna kick those motherfuckers out. I’ll tell Bill and Fleur when I’ve got dressed again. Meet in the kitchen?”

Luna nodded and the door slammed behind Dean. A second later, his own door slammed too. Luna didn’t get out of bed. She sat there, clutching the coin, which was still warm to the touch, her heart beating fast.

If Hermione and the boys were at Hogwarts, what did it mean? Was kicking Snape and the Carrows out of the castle part of their plan, or was something else happening? Only twenty-four hours ago, Luna had promised Hermione that she would stay here, safe and hidden, unless the trio were killed.

But if Neville and the rest of the DA were making a fight of it, Luna _had_ to be there. Hermione would understand that. She and Neville and Ginny had kept the DA going under the tyrannical regime of the Death Eaters. They had recruited, spread propaganda, staged spectacular rescues and made continuous trouble, and all in the name of freeing Hogwarts. And the Wizarding World, of course, but Hogwarts was the first step. Luna had to be there for the end of it.

She let go of the coin, letting it fall back onto her chest, and got out of bed. This was their fight, hers and Neville’s and Ginny’s, and she wasn’t going to miss it. She would leave Hermione’s envelope here, safe under the fidelius charm, and if it looked like she might be captured or killed, she’d escape. She could do an excellent disillusionment charm now.

A minute later she was hurrying downstairs clad in a loose cotton dress, wrestling her bra on as she went. She was the first down, though even as she straightened her dress, there was a yelp from upstairs and then a shriek she recognised as Bill’s. A door slammed. Dean clattered down the stairs and almost fell into the kitchen, where he sank onto a chair.

“Are they coming?” she asked.

“What?” he looked up at her, eyes wide.

“Are they coming? Bill and Fleur?”

“Oh. Yeah, I think so.” His eyes slid away from hers. Luna frowned.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Nothing!”

“Were they upset? Or angry? I heard someone shout.”

Dean groaned.

“No,” he said reluctantly. “They were – well – you know.” He gestured graphically. “You know?”

Luna doubled over, laughing until tears came into her eyes.

“It gets worse,” said Dean. He gulped. “They looked at me and I said – I said – “You’ve got to come.””

Luna sank onto one of the kitchen chairs, howling with laughter. Dean scowled.

“It wasn’t funny, it was bloody embarrassing. After that I just said there was a battle at Hogwarts and ran for it.”

Luna wiped her eyes with her skirt and attempted to control herself, for poor Dean was looking extremely flustered.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you must admit it was a little funny.”

“Yes,” said Fleur, sailing into the kitchen, already dressed and looking as calm and elegant as always. Luna stifled another laugh. “It was a little funny. But I think we have more important things to discuss just now. A battle at Hogwarts?”

Luna and Dean explained.

“Do the Order know?” said Bill, who was still rather pink around the cheeks and couldn’t meet Dean’s eye.

“I don’t know,” said Luna. “Neville said he’d tell me and Ginny when Harry and the others came back to Hogwarts, so Ginny will know. Either she’ll go there in secret or she’ll raise an army first. I’m not sure which, though.”

“Right,” said Bill, grabbing his boots. “I’ll go to Muriel’s.”

“And I will go to Andromeda,” said Fleur.

“And you two,” said Bill, eyeing them as he waved his wand at his bootlaces. “Will stay here.”

“What?” said Dean. “We will not!”

“You’re too young to be involved in a battle,” said Bill firmly. “You’ve never been in one, you don’t know what it’s like.”

Luna looked at him. Evidently he had forgotten that she _had_ been in the battle at the Ministry of Magic, and that she’d only been fifteen at the time. But Dean was about to argue and there wasn’t time. She slipped her hand into his and squeezed.

“Bill’s right, Dean,” she said solemnly. “We ought to stay here.”

Dean gaped at her.

“Good girl,” said Bill, briskly. “We’ll let you know what happens, don’t worry.”

“Thank you,” said Luna.

Bill strode out through the back door, wand in hand. Fleur paused for a moment to place a hand on Luna’s shoulder and one on Dean’s.

“See you soon,” she murmured, with the ghost of a wink, and then she was gone. The door closed. Luna turned to Dean.

“The coins say to apparate directly into the Hog’s Head,” she said, taking his hand again. “Shall we go?”

Dean blinked.

“But you said…”

“There didn’t seem much point in arguing about it,” said Luna.

Dean shrugged.

“Fair enough. You’ll have to side-along me though, I haven’t got a wand.”

Luna had forgotten that. Mr. Ollivander had sent word that he was starting to make a wand for Dean, but even if they had a way to ask Ginny to bring it, it probably wasn’t ready yet. She bit her lip.

“I’m not qualified yet,” she admitted. “I was quite good at it in our lessons, but I got kidnapped before I could take the test. I’ve never taken anyone else side-along. And – ought you to go, without a wand?”

“We’re both going,” said Dean. “I’ll just have to win myself a wand. Come on, Luna, you can do it.”

She turned to face him and held her other hand out so that they were doubly linked. They exchanged nervous grins, and then Luna shut her eyes and pictured the dingy interior of the Hog’s Head with perfect clarity, stepping into the darkness of apparition. A moment later the pub materialised around them. Luna steadied herself on the bar as her head spun.

“You did it!” yelled Dean, triumphantly. “That was brilliant, Luna. You okay?”

The world was settling back into its proper place, and she blinked and smiled at him rather uncertainly.

“Yes. Are you? You’re not splinched or anything?”

“Nope,” said Dean. “Not a scratch. You’re good at this.”

“Who the hell are you?”

The landlord had stalked out from some dark corner and was glaring at them. Luna turned to him, still beaming from Dean’s compliment.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Luna and he’s Dean. We need to get into Hogwarts in secret, please.”

The man intensified his scowl.

“Kids,” he muttered. “Bloody little fools, all of you. Fine. Whatever you want. Who am I to argue?”

“Thank you,” said Luna. The man snorted.

“Upstairs,” he said brusquely. “She’ll show you.”

They thanked him again, but he had already turned away, so Luna followed Dean up a set of dark, creaking stairs. There was a small room at the top, sparsely furnished but with a large painting of a young girl above the mantlepiece. It seemed clear to Luna who “she” must be.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Luna and this is Dean. That man downstairs said you could take us to Hogwarts?”

The girl smiled and nodded, and the painting swung forward, revealing a sizeable hole in the wall above the fireplace.

“This is the way?” said Dean. The girl nodded. “Convenient,” he muttered, and hoisted himself up clumsily.

Once he’d scrambled into the passageway and reached down to help Luna up, the painting swung closed again, leaving them in pitch darkness.

“Lumos,” said Luna, and then called, “Thank you!” towards the back of the painting.

“This is not what I was expecting,” said Dean as they started along the passageway. “D’you think this really leads to Hogwarts?”

“It must do, mustn’t it?” said Luna.

“Hell of a joke if it doesn’t. Fuck.” Dean had just banged his elbow as they rounded a corner.

“I don’t think that man would have lied. He seemed to be expecting us.”

They walked on in silence for some time.

“What do you reckon’s going to happen?” said Dean.

“A fight, I suppose. Once they know we’re throwing them out, I expect they’ll summon other Death Eaters.”

She wondered whether they might not even summon You-Know-Who himself. But no, surely not for a fight against schoolchildren. And teachers. And Order members. Although, if they realised that Harry and the others were at Hogwarts too… Icy dread leaked down Luna’s spine. Perhaps, after all, she had been wrong to come.

“I’ve never been in a battle,” said Dean. “Never really fought much at all, actually. Only in the DA.”

“I have,” said Luna. Her voice sounded small and frightened, even to herself. “It wasn’t very nice. I think this will be worse, though.”

Dean’s hand found hers. He squeezed.

“It’s worth it though. Right? To get them out of Hogwarts.”

“Yes,” said Luna.

“We don’t really have a choice, do we?”

“No.”

“Everything’s so… wrong.”

“And it won’t be right again until he’s gone,” she finished. “This is the first step. If we can make Hogwarts safe…”

Dean squeezed her hand again and they walked on in silence. At last they turned one last corner and reached a flight of stairs. Luna raised her wand and saw that there was a door at the top.

“I wonder where we’ll come out.”

“I dunno. Be careful.”

At the top of the stairs she paused and pressed her ear to the door.

“I can’t hear anything,” she whispered to Dean.

“It can’t be anything that bad, right?” he said. “I mean, Neville told us to come this way. He’d have warned us if it wasn’t safe.”

“Hm,” said Luna. “That’s a very good point.”

She faced the door again, turned the handle, pushed it open, and stepped through with Dean at her heels.

The room was huge and beautiful. It was full of colours and people, furniture and voices. The door must have been magicked not to let noise though, because everyone was talking loudly. Faces were turning towards them in surprise. Seamus rushed past Luna with a roar of welcome and flung his arms round Dean.

“We got your message, Neville!” she called out happily. There was Hermione, her face a picture of mingled horror and delight. Luna smiled at her. “Hello, you three.”

“Luna,” said Harry, who looked baffled. “What are you doing here? How did you –?”

“I sent for her,” said Neville, waving his fake coin.

“What are you doing here?” whispered Hermione, pulling Luna aside while Neville explained to Harry.

“I had to come,” Luna replied. “I’m sorry, Hermione, but if you’re going to overthrow the Carrows and Snape I’ve got to be here.”

Before Hermione could answer, Neville’s voice was rising.

“We all thought that if you came back, it would mean revolution! That we were going to overthrow Snape and the Carrows!”

“Of course that’s what it means,” she put in. “Isn’t it, Harry? We’re going to fight them out of Hogwarts?”

But Harry was looking just as confused as Hermione.

“That’s not what we came back for,” he protested. Luna’s stomach sank. She tugged Hermione’s hand and drew her aside as Harry carried on talking.

“What did you come for, if it wasn’t to get rid of the Death Eaters from Hogwarts?” she demanded. “That’s why I came. It’s my fight. I started it, with Neville and Ginny, and I’ve got to be here when we finish it.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be,” said Hermione. “I don’t think it can be. Harry – we still haven’t done everything. Although, maybe –” She stopped, biting her lips.

“Maybe?” Luna prompted. Hermione shook her head, and at that moment the door from the Hog’s Head flew open once more, and Ginny, Cho, Fred, George and Lee Jordan piled in. Ginny gave Harry a grin and a wave, but he was still arguing with Neville so she pushed her way towards Luna and Hermione instead.

“So, we’re fighting!” she said brightly. “About bloody time. Come on, let’s grab a chair before they’re all taken.” She grabbed Luna’s hand and towed her out of the throng.

“Sorry, I’ve got to make sure Harry – well, you know.” Hermione gestured vaguely.

“Keep him on the straight and narrow?” said Ginny. “I know. You go and do your thing.”

Hermione gave Luna an apologetic look and plunged back into the crowd. Luna followed Ginny, perching on the arm of a chair while Ginny plumped herself into it.

“How are you doing?” Ginny looked up at her. “I heard you had a rough time at Malfoy Manor.”

“I’m all right now. Mostly. Hermione helped a lot.”

Ginny’s brown eyes were bright.

“Hermione, eh? Ollivander did say something about the way you looked at her…”

Her voice trailed off suggestively. Luna’s mind instantly flashed to last night. Hermione’s eyes fixed on hers while her fingers, relentless, caressed and teased, rubbed and thrust, until Luna’s gasps of pleasure turned to cries. Her whole body seemed to heat up, and Ginny laughed and patted her thigh.

“I see it’s going well,” she said. Luna smiled at her.

“Very,” she said simply.

“Good. Can you believe we’re doing this at last? I can’t wait to see Snape’s face when we kick him the fuck out.”

“I’m not sure that’s what they came back for.”

“What? What else would they be here for?”

Luna hesitated, but after all, this was Ginny.

“Apparently there are _things_ that have to be done before You-Know-Who can die. I don’t know what, but that’s what they’ve been trying to do. I think they came here to do one of them.”

“Huh.” Ginny pondered this. “Oh well, we’ll fight anyway, right?”

“I don’t think even Harry can stop it now.”

Even as they both looked across the room towards Harry, he started waving his arms and shouting for quiet.

“Okay,” he said, once he could be easily heard. “There’s something we need to find that’ll help us overthrow You-Know-Who. It’s here at Hogwarts, but we don’t know where. It might have belonged to Ravenclaw. Has anyone heard of an object like that?”

“Well.” Luna raised her voice. “There’s her lost diadem. I told you about it, remember, Harry? The lost diadem of Ravenclaw. Daddy’s trying to duplicate it,” she added, since he was still looking confused.

“Yeah, but the lost diadem is _lost_ , Luna.” That was Michael Corner’s sarcastic voice. Harry ignored him, questioning the Ravenclaws about the diadem until Cho offered to take him to their common room so that he could see the replica of it, upon the head of the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw, for himself.

“No,” said Ginny. “Luna will take Harry, won’t you, Luna?”

Luna raised the eyebrow that wasn’t facing Harry at her and Ginny’s cheeks turned slightly pink. Just as Luna had suspected, she was jealous. She didn’t need to be; Cho had never been any happier with Harry than he had been with her. She looked back and gave Cho a smile as she and Harry started up a long, steep, staircase.

They climbed in silence, since Harry’s head was obviously filled to bursting with all his thoughts – Luna whispered a charm to repel wrackspurts – and eventually found themselves on the fifth floor. That was very odd, Luna mused, since the Room of Requirement was on the seventh floor and they had been going upwards all the time. She folded the information away in her mind to think about later and led Harry towards the familiar white spiral staircase. All these stairs, she thought, smiling to herself. She really was back at Hogwarts.

At the top, the doorknob asked her one of the old riddles it liked to give its favourite students. Harry did not seem to have considered such questions before, so Luna gave her own answer and the door opened for them. They stepped into the Ravenclaw common room.

Something seemed to settle – to _rest_ – in Luna’s mind as she halted near the door. She had somehow expected it to be different after her five month absence, but it looked just as it had always done. The enormous windows, now covered with blue silk curtains. The great bookcases filled with books of all kinds; she could smell them already. The worn, comfortable chairs, the battered desks, the rugs that covered the floor. She hadn’t always been happy here, but it felt like home.

While she gazed around happily, Harry had ducked out from under the invisibility cloak to inspect the statue of Ravenclaw more closely. Luna moved into the room, her feet drawing her towards a spot on a rug that had once been thick and luxurious but was now almost threadbare. The spot where she’d been sitting, cross-legged, reading a large book called _Magical Creatures of the Mind_ , when Cho Chang had come and sat next to her after the second DA meeting and started to chat. It was one of the more surprising things that had happened to Luna in the Ravenclaw common room, but Cho was extremely popular and a glare from her was worth two half-hour lectures from a prefect. After that, people had only taken her things when Cho wasn’t around.

She was smiling slightly over the memory when Alecto Carrow’s voice rang out behind her. Luna swung round, her heart in her mouth, and saw Harry raising his wand. He was too late. Alecto had already pressed her Dark Mark.

For a moment Luna felt dizzy with shock. She had expected to come face to face with the Professors Carrow at some point, but not here in the Ravenclaw common room. Not with You-Know-Who summoned and now, presumably, on his way. Her first thought was of the parchment envelope that lay on her pillow at Shell Cottage and that she had definitely been wrong to come. Her second was that it didn’t matter any more. She was here now.

“Stupefy!” she cried.

There was a loud _bang!_ and Alecto Carrow crumpled to the floor. Luna stared at her for a moment, and then looked at Harry.

“I’ve never stunned anyone except in our DA lessons,” she said breathlessly. “That was noisier than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah.” Harry glanced upwards towards the dormitories, where the rumble of footsteps had begun to grow. “Where are you?” he demanded. “I need to get under the cloak.”

She’d quite forgotten she was under it, but she lifted it and waved him under just as the door to the dormitories opened and a whole crowd of Ravenclaws entered, nervously at first, and then with more confidence. Luna found herself grinning as they crowded around Alecto Carrow, seeming quite delighted at her predicament.

“Look!” she whispered to Harry. “They’re pleased!”

But his face was screwed up in a grimace of pain. Alarmed, Luna took his hand, but before she could speak, there was a banging on the door, the Ravenclaws were fleeing, and Harry’s eyes had flown open, though he still looked pale and a bit sweaty. And then Amycus Carrow and Professor McGonagall were inside the common room and arguing fiercely over who should take the blame for summoning You-Know-Who. Luna wondered whether she could ever argue like Professor McGonagall, a tall lighthouse standing perfectly steady in the midst of a raging sea that tried to break her to pieces.

Probably not; Luna hated arguments. She was so engrossed in watching and listening to this one that she was taken completely by surprise when Harry dropped her hand, dived out from under the cloak, and turned his wand on Amycus, whose screams instantly filled the air. Luna had heard far too many of those screams in the last few months, though when she remembered how terrified the Ravenclaws had been of his sister just a few minutes before, and some of the things that he had done to them, she could not bring herself to stop Harry. All the same, she was glad when the screams stopped.

“I see what Bellatrix meant,” he said, breathing very hard. “You need to really mean it.”

McGonagall seemed to be in shock.

“Potter,” she gasped. “Don’t you realise –”

“Yeah, I do. Professor McGonagall, Voldemort’s on the way.”

“Are we allowed to say the name now?” asked Luna. Then she remembered that she was still under the cloak and hurriedly bundled it up under her arm.

“I don’t think it makes any difference what we call him. He already knows where I am.”

Harry was still gasping and grimacing in pain every now and again, which seemed to alarm McGonagall even more than the rapid approach of Lord Voldemort. However, she had pulled herself together by the time Harry had explained about the diadem and Voldemort, and imprisoned the Carrows with great efficiency and aplomb. Then they were racing back down the spiral staircase, Luna and Harry back under the invisibility cloak.

They ran into Snape on the third floor, but McGonagall was too good for him and he fled through the window just as Professors Flitwick and Sprout arrived at a run. Luna was disappointed to hear that he wasn’t dead, then felt a slight twinge at her own hardness. There had been a time when she wouldn’t have hurt a wrackspurt, but then came the battle at the Ministry and then, a year later, the one in the corridors of Hogwarts itself. Anyway, Snape was a vile man, one who had bullied children mercilessly for years and then looked on, unperturbed, as they were imprisoned and tortured. If Luna had become hard, she had been given reasons to do so.

The teachers were making swift plans for the evacuation of the pupils and for the fighting. Flitwick was strengthening the castle’s defences, Sprout was racing off to gather offensive plants. Slughorn was being forced to make a choice. Professor McGonagall was magicking life into the statues and suits of armour that stood around Hogwarts and giving them a rousing speech which sent shivers down Luna’s spine. And then she and Harry were running through corridors, up stairs, round corners, through bewildered groups of students, until they burst back into the Room of Requirement.

Lots more people had arrived while they had been away. Order members, DA members, their friends and parents and others were all there. Luna waved at Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson and scanned the room for Hermione, skirting past Harry and working her way through the crowds. Where could she be? But then a fierce cheer went up, sending another shiver down Luna’s spine, and people began to flock out of the Room.

“Come on, Luna!” yelled Dean, holding out his hand, his other already in Seamus’s. She gave up the search for Hermione, grabbed Dean’s hand, and joined the flood of moving bodies.

“How’re you doing, Luna?” asked Seamus over Dean’s head. “Dean said you got locked up in Malfoy’s cellar!”

“Yes!” Luna had to raise her voice to be heard, but they were gradually moving towards the door. “But Harry and the others rescued us. I’m all right now. How are you?”

“Ah, you know,” said Seamus, with a lopsided grin. “Got tortured a few times, but the Room’s brilliant. Kept us all safe.”

“It’s amazing,” she murmured, looking back into it as they finally left.

The corridors were packed and slow-moving. Most of the students wore pyjamas and had evidently been wakened from slumber, but a few were still in their school robes. Several appeared to have been interrupted in the middle of a party, for they clutched food and bottles of butterbeer.

Eventually they made it to the Great Hall, which was already half full. Professor McGonagall, the staff and the prefects were in a large huddle at the top of the room. Luna waved to Dean and Seamus, then made her way to the Ravenclaw table, where Cherry and Hortense, both from her dormitory in Ravenclaw, were beckoning. Luna sat down on the bench in a small gap beside Hortense.

“We heard you came with Harry Potter!” said Hortense immediately. “Is it true?”

“Oh,” said Luna. Of course it was Harry they were interested in. She crushed out a spark of sadness and smiled at Hortense instead. “We were staying in the same place for the last few weeks, but we came here separately.”

“ _Really_?” said Cherry. “You were staying with him? What’s he doing? Is he fighting or is he just hiding?”

“Not that we’d blame him, obviously,” said Hortense quickly.

“Of course he’s not just hiding,” said Luna, allowing a little coldness to creep into her voice. They ought to know better than that by this time. She had for years. “He’s been fighting all the time, just in secret.”

“All right, but he’s here now?” said Hortense. “To fight? To get rid of Snape and those Carrows?”

“Professor McGonagall’s already got rid of Snape,” said Luna, grinning. Their heads swung round towards the dais at the top of the Hall, where McGonagall was talking to the rest of the staff, and then back to Luna. “And I think it’s going to be more than the Carrows. You-Know-Who’s on his way. Voldemort, I mean.”

Hortense’s mouth fell open. Cherry blinked very fast several times and then said,

“What – but – we can’t fight _him!_ ”

“Don’t worry, anyone who wants to leave will be able to. We’ve got an escape route and everything.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Luna noticed that the huddle at the top of the Great Hall had broken up and the prefects were hurrying along between the tables, taking up posts at intervals along them.

Cherry gulped.

“B-but what’s he doing _here_?” said Hortense faintly. “We haven’t done anything.”

“No, but Alecto Carrow found us and told him that Harry’s here,” Luna explained. “He wants to kill Harry more than anything, practically.”

They stared at her.

“Good evening, everyone!” Professor McGonagall had made her voice much louder so that it rang through the Great Hall. They all swung round to look at her. “Thank you for making your way here so quickly and quietly. I am afraid I have some bad news for you.”

Luna, since she already knew what the bad news was, allowed her attention to wander. Many of the Ravenclaws were looking anxious. Even under the Carrows, the entire school being woken and gathered was almost unprecedented. The last time had been in Luna’s second year, when Sirius Black had broken in to try to find and kill his former friend, Peter Pettigrew. Luna had watched both Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew die since then.

“There is no way to break it to you gently,” McGonagall was saying. “And no time to do so. Lord Voldemort is on his way to Hogwarts with his Death Eaters and other followers.”

Gasps and cries went up around the Hall. Several of the smallest Ravenclaws burst into tears. Luna spotted Cho, right at the other end of the table, with her arms around two first years. They exchanged grim smiles. Luna looked back towards the staff, where Professor McGonagall held up a hand to request silence. It came as quickly as it ever had for Dumbledore.

“I know that this is very frightening news,” she went on. “But please rest assured that I and the rest of the staff will prioritise your safety. Lord Voldemort is making for the main gates of the school, but there is a secret passage to Hogsmeade that leads from the seventh floor.”

“What makes you think we’ll be safe in Hogsmeade?” shouted a voice from the Hufflepuff table.

“An excellent question, Mr. Smith,” said McGonagall calmly. “There will be residents of Hogsmeade and members of the Order of the Phoenix waiting there to escort you to safety. In any case, we believe that Voldemort will be concentrating all of his power on Hogwarts, for it is extremely important to him to enter the school. He will not wish to weaken himself by attacking Hogsmeade at the same time.”

She paused as though waiting for more questions, but the Great Hall was silent except for some scattered sobs and whispers. A movement by the doors caught Luna’s eye and she saw Harry enter. Hermione wasn’t with him. How long had she been missing now? Even if she’d gone only just before Luna and Harry had returned to the Room of Requirement, it must be at least twenty minutes.

“The evacuation,” said Professor McGonagall, when no-one spoke. “Will be overseen by Mr. Filch and Madam Pomfrey. Prefects, when I give the word, you will please organise your houses and take your charges, in an orderly fashion, to the evacuation point. I beg you all to remain calm and listen to your prefects.”

“What if we want to stay and fight?” demanded Ernie Macmillan, jumping up. Several people cheered and applauded. Luna clapped along with them. There was only the briefest pause before Professor McGonagall said,

“If you are of age, you may stay.”

“What about our things?” called Deirdre Robinson, who was in the year below Luna. “Our trunks. Our _owls_?”

“We have no time to collect possessions. The important thing is to get you out of here safely.”

Deirdre’s lip trembled. Luna knew that she was painfully fond of her owl, Lizzie, and leaned across the table to speak to her.

“Don’t worry, the owls can just fly out of the Owlery,” she said. “Lizzie will probably be at home to meet you when you get there.”

Deirdre gave her a wobbly smile, and then Luna was distracted by a girl at the Slytherin table, whose name she couldn’t remember, shouting accusingly,

“Where’s Professor Snape?”

Professor McGonagall’s lips thinned.

“He has, to use the common phrase, done a bunk.”

Luna giggled while the students around her began to cheer. Hortense was punching the air with her fist and Cherry wolf-whistled at Professor McGonagall. Luna kept an eye on Harry, who was wandering through the Hall like a lost sheep, leaving stares and whispers in his wake.

McGonagall held her hand up again, and the cheers died away.

“We have already placed protection around the castle,” she said. “But it is unlikely to hold for very long unless we reinforce it. I must ask you, therefore, to move quickly and calmly, and do as your prefects –”

Her words died away as another voice spoke, much more loudly than hers, echoing and piercing. It was high and clear, and Luna knew instantly who it must be even though she had never seen him or heard him speak before. She clutched the edges of the bench she was sitting on, her mouth suddenly dry and her heart thundering.

“I know that you are preparing to fight,” it said. Luna shut her eyes. “Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood.”

Luna thought of Sirius, dead, and Peter Pettigrew, dead, and the Death Eater whose name she didn’t know, dead, and those whom she had heard die at Malfoy Manor in the months she had been imprisoned there, and wondered how he thought any of them could possibly believe him.

“Give me Harry Potter, and none will be harmed,” the terrifying voice continued. “Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded. You have until midnight.”

Perhaps he even thought he was telling the truth, thought Luna as the voice died away, her eyes still closed. But Harry would certainly be harmed if they gave him up, and that gave the lie to his promises.

“But he’s there!”

Pansy Parkinson’s voice was almost a scream. Luna thought she sounded terrified. She couldn’t blame her, either, she probably knew better than most of them what Voldemort could and would do. Luna opened her eyes as Pansy’s voice shrilled on.

“Potter’s there! Someone grab him!”

Poor girl, but she was wrong, of course. Giving Harry to Voldemort would not make things better for anyone else. Luna rose from her seat, facing Pansy and the Slytherins, at exactly the same moment as the rest of her house did.

Professor McGonagall sent the Slytherins to evacuate first after that. None of them stayed behind to fight, but Luna knew that after what Pansy had said and the rest of the school had done, any who did want to stay and help probably would not dare. That seemed wrong, somehow, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

A few minutes later, the Ravenclaws began to leave, marching out behind Padma Patil, with the other prefects keeping order up and down the long lines. Luna, naturally, stayed behind, and so did quite a lot of others. To her surprise, neither Hortense nor Cherry had moved.

“Aren’t you going?” she whispered.

Hortense merely shrugged, but Cherry answered, shaking her dark head.

“If people are fighting then I’m going to help. You-Know-Who needs to be defeated.”

Hortense was nodding, and Luna looked at them both. They must have been in bed when they were summoned to the Great Hall, because they were both wearing their dressing gowns over pyjamas. It made them look oddly vulnerable for girls who had spent five of their years at Hogwarts making fun of her and ruining her homework and taking her things. Luna pushed those thoughts away. They had all come together, the last term she had been here.

“You might die,” she said.

“We might die anyway,” said Hortense, scowling. She was turning her wand round and round in her fingers.

“And I don’t want to live in the kind of world You-Know-Who’s making,” said Cherry. “Better to stop him before he can really get started. If we can. Right?”

Luna shivered. Cherry was right. Voldemort would slaughter and subjugate the muggleborns and the muggles, and that was horrifying enough, but would he even stop there? Would half bloods be next? Or would it be Black people like Cherry and Hermione, or Jewish people like Anthony Goldstein, or others whom Voldemort decided that wizards should hate?

“Yes,” she agreed, and smiled unhappily at them. She hoped they would win.

The three of them sat together as the Hufflepuffs filed out and, finally, the Gryffindors. Once they had gone, Kingsley Shacklebolt took McGonagall’s place on the platform to explain their plans, and then he and the others began to split everyone up to send them to various posts around the castle.

“Luna!” She turned and saw Bill Weasley rushing between the tables towards her. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at home!”

“Did you really expect me to stay there when this could be our chance to rid the world of You-Know… Voldemort?”

He flinched slightly and frowned at her.

“This isn’t a joke, Luna! This is going to be a battle. People are –” he lowered his voice. “People are going to die. You could die. Please leave now, there’s still time.”

Luna shook her head.

“I understand that you feel responsible for me, since I’ve been living in your house for the last month, but I’m of age, Bill. I can make this decision for myself, and if I die, it will be worth it.”

“It bloody will not,” he growled. “Yes, fine, you’re technically of age, but only by a few months. You don’t understand, Luna. How could you? It’s going to be much worse than anything you could imagine. Where’s Dean? He doesn’t even have a wand!”

“He’s over there,” said Luna calmly, pointing to where Dean, Seamus, Lavender and Parvati were following Professor McGonagall towards the dais, where they were evidently to be allocated to a defence team. Bill stared for a moment. Luna took the opportunity to say, “Have you ever been in a battle like this, then, Bill? Do you know what it’s going to be like?”

He turned back to her, running his hand distractedly through his hair.

“No, but I’ve been in plenty of nasty situations, and believe me –”

“I fought the Death Eaters at the Ministry of Magic two years ago,” said Luna. Bill fell silent. “I fought them again when they attacked Hogwarts last year. I know, Bill. It’s going to be much, much, worse than either of those times. But we don’t really have a choice, do we?”

There was a long silence. Cherry and Hortense were watching, enthralled. At last, Bill sagged and pushed his hand through his hair again.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine. I’m not going to be responsible for telling your dad if you die, though.”

He left, still looking unhappy, and was replaced by Professor Lupin, who gathered the three of them up and ushered them, along with several others, towards the opposite side of the Great Hall, where a large group of adults, most of whom Luna didn’t recognise, were standing and talking in low voices.

“Right!” he said, as they arrived. The others fell silent immediately. “Since the Death Eaters are gathered at the gates, we can assume that their most vicious and effective assault on Hogwarts will take place there. Arthur Weasley’s group will be stationed at the other most vulnerable point at the other side of the grounds. Kingsley’s group is the largest and will be responsible for defending the gates for as long as possible. We will be spreading out in twos and threes along the walls to repel and put out of action any Death Eaters who attempt to breach the defences in less obvious places. Is that clear?”

They all nodded. Several people asked questions, and after a few minutes Luna raised her own hand. Remus nodded at her to speak.

“Should we be aiming to kill the Death Eaters?” she asked. One or two of the other members of the group rolled their eyes. The adults.

“An excellent question, Luna,” said Remus. “The Order and Hogwarts staff will be fighting to kill. The Death Eaters will certainly be doing so, and unfortunately it is all to easy to revive a stunned person and to perform certain healing spells. It’s our only option if we want to win this fight.”

“In other words, there’s no point in using your little stunners on them,” said a middle-aged woman with curly hair and pink cheeks, scowling. “This is why the children shouldn’t be here, Remus.”

“Luna and the others are all of age, Clara,” said Remus. “And, Luna – in fact, this applies to all of you, no matter your age.” He looked around at the group. “If you do not feel able to kill, it will not be held against you. Anything and everything each of us does will be of use in this battle. Every injury weakens its target. I do urge you, however, to… well, to stay alive if you possibly can, even if that does mean using lethal force.”

Luna nodded, and so did quite a few of the others. Hers seemed to be the last question, and Remus spent a few minutes taking them through a simple set of signals that they should respond to, or use themselves if they needed help.

And then Remus was glancing at his wristwatch and saying,

“We have fifteen minutes to get into position. Let’s go.”

They sped out of the Great Hall, out through the enormous oak front doors, and into the grounds. Luna realised, as she trotted after Remus with Cherry and Hortense at her side, that she had still not seen Hermione since she had left the Room of Requirement with Harry. She bit her lip. But she could not alter whatever had happened to Hermione. She sent those thoughts to a gentle backwater of her mind and concentrated on what was to come.


	3. The Thirty-Third Day

Luna was fighting. Remus had warned them that the protections on the grounds would not last long, but she hadn’t expected them to fail this quickly. The Death Eaters had got through the gates within minutes and screams, flashes and bangs from that direction told her that they were in the castle now, too, although that had taken them longer.

Luna was fighting and it felt as though she had been fighting forever. The grass beneath her boots was churned into mud. The darkness of the night meant that all she could see beyond a few yards was the bright flashing of curses and hexes. They hurt her eyes. The screams hurt her ears. She was duelling someone in a mask and she had no idea who they were and she was trying to hurt them.

Luna was fighting. It was worse than the Ministry, so much worse. At the Ministry they had simply been trying to flee. There were bodies everywhere. She had tripped over and fallen onto one a few minutes ago and when she got up she still had no idea whether the person was a Death Eater or one of Hogwarts’ defenders. It was too dark. There was no fleeing here. Only fighting.

She was nearer the castle now, just on the edge of the light that spilled out onto the grounds.

“Stupefy!” she screamed at a Death Eater, and this time her aim was true. It was hard to hit people when they kept on moving. She ran up to the Death Eater and grabbed their wand. Pain shot across her back and she fell to her knees. Nothing else happened though, and when she struggled up, Seamus was behind her, kicking a writhing Death Eater in the bollocks.

“Thanks,” gasped Luna. Then Seamus screamed. She swung round and echoed his scream. An enormous swarm of spiders – enormous, gigantic, horrific spiders – was flooding across the grounds towards the castle. Seamus and Luna, in common with everyone else, Order or Death Eater, fled.

“You all right?” said Seamus as they stood, breathing heavily and watching the spiders vanish into the school.

“What?” Luna was still staring after the spiders.

“Your back.”

“Oh. Yes.” It still burned with pain, but she could stand and run and wield her wand. “We should go and help, Seamus.”

He made a face but agreed, and they ran across the churned up grass.

“Avada Kedavra!”

She grabbed Seamus and they both crashed to the ground. Luna rolled over, wand in hand, the pain in her back searing again as she stared up at Bellatrix Lestrange.

“Stupefy!” she gasped, but Bellatrix dodged easily and laughed.

“Crucio!” she said, her wand thrusting at Luna.

The pain screamed through her.

When she eventually remembered she had eyes and opened them, she was lying on her front, her face in a patch of sticky mud. She could hear shouts and screams. The spell flashes made her feel a bit sick and she shut her eyes again for a minute.

“Luna?” said a voice close to her. She opened her eyes again and saw Seamus peering anxiously into her face. “Oh thank God,” he said, and looked away from her, over his shoulder. “She’s all right.”

Luna pushed herself up onto her elbows, realising as she flexed her neck uneasily that Ernie was on her other side.

“Bellatrix?” she croaked.

“Went after Neville’s gran. Did you know she was here?” said Seamus. “Anyway, there’s no way Bellatrix is gonna win _that_ duel. Come on, let’s get you up.”

Seamus and Ernie took her arms and hoisted her to her feet. There was nobody near them just now, which was a relief because although the pain was receding Luna felt horribly shaken. She had heard people screaming under the cruciatus frequently in the last few months, but this was the first time she’d experienced it herself.

“Will you be all right?” said Ernie anxiously.

“Yes. It was just… a shock.”

Ernie patted her on the shoulder, and then he and Luna both jumped as Seamus let out another yelp. They turned to see that the giant spiders were, apparently, fleeing the castle.

“Well, thank God they’re off,” said Ernie fervently.

Three figures were following the spiders and Luna’s heart jolted as she recognised the shape of a running Hermione. An alive, running Hermione! Luna raced after the figures, away from Hogwarts, away from the battle, towards whatever Hermione was doing.

And then she stopped.

“Luna?” gasped Ernie, as he and Seamus halted beside her. Luna hadn’t even realised they had followed.

“Dementors,” whispered Seamus. They stood there for a brief, horrified moment, and then Luna realised that the Dementors weren’t approaching them. Instead, they were gliding swiftly towards Hermione, Harry and Ron.

“Why aren’t they doing their patronuses?” said Ernie in a hushed voice.

“Maybe they can’t,” said Seamus. He seemed frozen.

Luna shut her eyes and fixed her mind on the memory of Hermione’s warm lips on hers and Hermione’s warm arms around her after a bad dream. She twirled her wand.

“Expecto Patronum!”

She opened her eyes and there was her silver hare, poised in front of her, tense and alert. She beamed at Seamus and Ernie.

“That’s the first time I’ve done a Patronus when there were actually Dementors around!” she said. “Come on. They still haven’t done their ones and I think they need help.”

It took Ernie two tries and Seamus four, but then they were hurrying forward again. Luna’s hare leapt towards the Dementors and, as she came up beside her, she saw Hermione’s wand hand begin to rise again from her side, her face desperate.

“That’s right,” she said, as gently as she could, and slipped her hand into Hermione’s free one. Hermione took a deep breath, then another, and twirled her wand. But Harry was still standing there, his wand dangling at his side. “That’s right, Harry,” she told him. “Come on, think of something happy.”

And his stag raced towards the Dementors, just behind Hermione’s otter and Ron’s little dog, both of which were streaking through the dark night air. Luna breathed a sigh of relief.

Hermione squeezed Luna’s hand and Luna squeezed back.

“Can’t thank you enough,” Ron was saying. He still looked terrified. “You just saved…”

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” whispered Luna.

There was an immense roar and the ground shook. They scattered just as a giant’s enormous foot landed where Harry had been standing. There was another flash from the direction of Hogwarts, and Seamus grabbed her hand.

“Come on!” he yelled, and somehow they were halfway back to the castle before Luna realised that Hermione, Harry and Ron were not with them. She glanced back for half a second, but the grounds were pitch dark behind her; all the action was at the castle. Anyway, Hermione was with Harry and Ron, she’d be fine. Luna ran after Seamus and Ernie as they plunged into a small group of beleaguered defenders, shooting spells at Death Eaters who hadn’t seen their approach from the dark grounds.

The battle raged on. She found herself back to back with Kingsley Shacklebolt, firing off stunner after stunner. Then she was throwing gouts of fire at a Death Eater to protect a trio of terrified third-years who must have sneaked back into Hogwarts somehow. She shoved them into a broom cupboard and sealed the door, telling them ferociously not to even think about coming out until things had been quiet for at least an hour, no matter how long that took.

Then she was diving behind a statue to avoid a nasty looking purple spell that made a loud whining noise as it shot past her. Sending off a shield charm to protect Susan Bones, who was duelling a Death Eater and didn’t even notice her. Screaming defiance at a group who came upon her from behind and would have killed her in seconds if they hadn’t been distracted by Professors McGonagall, Hooch and Grubbly-Plank almost immediately.

Bodies were falling everywhere and there wasn’t time to check if they were dead or not. Luna still had no idea how much time had passed. It was impossible to think when the flashes of spells seared her eyes and the screams and bangs were almost constant. She was in the Entrance Hall now, and dust was cascading from the ceiling. Something slashed across her left arm and her back. Luna screamed. She was on the floor. Someone trod on her and she screamed again. Someone else yanked her to her feet and a curse hit the floor exactly where her head had been a second before.

And then came the voice.

They fell silent, all of them, lowering their wands and staring around, wondering where the voice was coming from.

“You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste.”

You started it, thought Luna. Liar. She felt as though she was floating up around the ceiling while the voice went on.

“Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat, immediately.” They did. It was almost unnerving, the way they simply walked away, even before Voldemort had finished speaking. “You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.”

And then he addressed Harry. Told him, and all of them, that the deaths and injuries were Harry’s fault, because he was a coward. Liar. Liar. Liar, thought Luna. He challenged Harry to face him alone. Appealed to his heroism, or something. Harry wouldn’t do that though. Hermione and Ron wouldn’t let him.

Luna stared around, dazed, as the voice died away. The Death Eaters had melted away as Voldemort’s voice went on and on, and nobody had made a move to try to stop them. The Entrance Hall was still full of people, though, starting to move around, touching each other gently, leaning in to talk, coming together in small groups, lifting bodies.

She stood there, returning, piece by piece, to her body. Suddenly she could feel every cut, every bruise, the aches from falling so often. Her back felt as though it was on fire. She leaned against the pillar she was standing near. Her legs were shaking. Her back hurt so much. She could see a body lying just a yard away. She should move. She should help. Her back really, really hurt. Was it actually on fire?

“Luna!” That was Dean’s voice. She tried to reply but her mouth wouldn’t move. “You all right?”

She swallowed.

“Yeah.”

“Thank Mer – no, you’re not! What happened to your feet? Is that yours? Oh shit, your back.”

Her feet? Luna looked down. She was standing in a puddle – a whole puddle of blood. One of her boots was still on her foot, tightly laced, but the other must have loosened and come off during the battle. Her right foot was half sunk in blood. It was between her toes, under her nails, had splashed up onto her ankle.

“Luna?” Dean’s sounded alarmed. She moved her eyes back towards his face. “Okay, you’re not all right. They’re treating people in the Great Hall. Come on, lean on me…”

She was glad of the support. The world had gone distant and swirly and she shut her eyes, letting Dean guide her bloody feet. Now she was aware of movement around her, voices questioning, crying, calling out. Now they had paused, and now there was a conversation right above her head, and now she was lying down on something soft. She let the noise drift above her.

Had she gone to sleep? Her back didn’t hurt any more. Someone was helping her up and holding a cup to her lips.

“Drink this, dear,” said Professor Trelawney.

She gulped a mouthful of it down and coughed. The world came back into focus and Luna blinked at the Divination teacher.

“All of it,” said Professor Trelawney, tilting the cup. Luna swallowed it all, despite the taste, and wiped her mouth.

“Thank you,” she slurred.

“And now this one,” said Trelawney. Luna looked at the new cup and saw a potion that looked as though someone had scooped up a bit of the puddle she’d been standing in. She recoiled.

“It’s a blood-replenishing potion,” explained Professor Trelawney. “The first potion was just to clear your mind and boost your body’s natural ability to heal itself. Poppy has healed your back and arm. You’ll have a nasty scar, it was a deep cut and the curse took some of the flesh. There isn’t time to make the healing look good. But it’ll be all right. You lost a lot of blood, though, and this will top up your body’s blood supply.”

“Oh,” said Luna. She drank the potion, which tasted like black pudding.

“And this one,” said Trelawney, handing her a third cup. “Is a painkiller. I’ve performed a nerve-freezing charm for the time being, but it’ll wear off soon.”

Luna drank the painkilling potion and put the cup down.

“That’s all.”

“Thank you, Professor Trelawney,” said Luna. She still felt exhausted and nauseous, but that was already starting to fade.

“It’s my pleasure, dear,” said Trelawney as she got to her feet. “You’re to sit still there for another ten minutes and then you can leave.”

And she moved along to the next huddled body.

Luna risked a glance at her feet and found that they were clean again. She wondered who had done it. After a moment’s thought, she took her right boot off so that her feet matched, wiggled her pink toes at herself, and then took a breath and looked up again, around the Great Hall.

There were bodies everywhere. A neat line of them lay down the centre of the Hall and she could tell immediately that they were the dead ones. People surrounded them in clumps, hunched and clinging. At this end of the Hall, on the dais where the teachers usually sat, were the injured. Some were recovering, like Luna herself, and others seemed to be awaiting treatment, but many looked very hurt indeed. Madam Pomfrey and other helpers were hurrying between them, wands out. Elsewhere, survivors of the battle clung together in little huddles, treating each other’s more minor wounds, searching for lost friends, hurrying in and out of the Great Hall supporting or carrying bodies.

When her head had cleared and her nausea receded, Luna got cautiously to her feet. Someone had tucked her wand into the pocket in her robes, and she took it out again, looking around. It wasn’t that there was nowhere she could be of help, it was that there were so many places. She spotted the group of third years she’d shut in the cupboard, but people were already clustered around them.

Then she found Hermione, clearly visible in the midst of a red-haired group. Luna gripped her wand harder, hurrying over. They were about halfway along the long line of dead bodies, huddled around a figure. Fred. It was Fred Weasley. Luna had never known him very well, but they had been in the DA together and she had liked him.

Hermione had an arm around Ginny and one around Ron, both of whom were sobbing, and tears were running down Hermione’s own face. Luna came to Ginny’s other side, holding her close and weeping her own tears over Fred, then more over Remus and his wife, who were the next two bodies along.

After a while, the Weasleys began to shift, drawing together, and Hermione and Luna retreated a little. Hermione reached out for Luna’s hand.

“Are you all right? Sorry, there’s a stupid question.”

Their arms went around each other. It was so good to feel Hermione again, warm and strong, her hair tickling Luna’s face.

“I am all right,” said Luna into her neck. “I’m – I’m alive, anyway. I’m so glad you’re not dead. You were gone for so long.”

“I’m fine.” Hermione was sobbing again, her tears dripping onto Luna’s shoulder. “I just can’t believe – Fred’s gone, Luna, and Remus and Tonks, and – and it’s not even over yet.”

“I know,” said Luna. She was feeling small again, and helpless, clinging to Hermione in a sea of bodies. She seemed to be the only warm thing in the room.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” whispered Hermione. “I’m so glad.”

At last they drew away from one another. Hermione wiped her eyes and stared around.

“We should go and help,” she declared.

“I know,” said Luna. “But there are so many…”

Hermione looked at her and took her hand, pulling her gently towards the dais where even more injured people now lay, as yet untreated.

“You know some healing spells,” she said gently. “You told me, remember? Back at Shell Cottage, when I hurt myself falling out of bed?”

“Oh, yes.” Luna managed a small smile. “I remember.”

“Good. You can help there, then. Come on.”

Madam Pomfrey welcomed the two of them with open arms and set them to inspecting and healing people with more minor injuries. The cuts and burns, the sprains and even the simpler breaks. They made people swallow potions for shock and pain. They helped recovering patients away and comforted new ones as they were helped across the Great Hall. Occasionally they carried the dead away.

Luna lost track of time again, and was glad of it. Even once all the minor injuries had been treated as well as possible under the circumstances, there was work to be done. Some of the worst injured needed blood replenishing potions every few minutes, or tricky little mind-clearing charms, or someone to siphon off the blood so that Madam Pomfrey could work on their injury properly. Luna turned out to be very good at the mind-clearing charms, and Madam Pomfrey set her to doing them on a rotation.

She had just performed and recorded a thirteenth charm on Justin Finch-Fletchley when Madam Pomfrey laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you, Luna,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid we’ve lost Sally-Anne. Would you mind helping Hermione place her with the others? I’ll take over here.”

Luna nodded and walked over to where Sally-Anne’s body lay, face pale, eyes closed. Hermione took her shoulders and Luna lifted her feet. Nobody had been using magic to carry the dead, as though it were an unspoken agreement throughout Hogwarts. It simply hadn’t felt right.

They stood there for a moment. Hermione swiped her arm across her eyes.

“She was nice,” she said. “Quiet, but she was Muggleborn too, and sometimes we talked about books, and films, and… well, Muggle things.”

“Hermione!” Ron hurried up to them, his face still blotchy and wet from crying. It was anxious, too. “Luna! Have either of you seen Harry?”

Luna shook her head. Actually, since Harry hadn’t been with the Weasleys beside Fred’s body, or anywhere else, she had assumed that he was off doing something the trio had agreed upon. But Hermione had frozen.

“H-Harry?”

“Yeah, I haven’t seen him since we got back from the Shrieking Shack. Have you?”

“No,” whispered Hermione. “Oh, Ron. That message – Voldemort – you don’t think he’s –?”

Ron put his hands over his face. Luna’s heart thumped. Voldemort had told Harry that unless he came to him, alone, within the hour, everyone would be killed. Of course Harry would go. He was that sort of person. Luna had thought Hermione and Ron would stop him, but they had been here. Ron lowered his trembling hands and his eyes were huge.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do. He might even have gone straight away. He – he could be dead already.”

Hermione sank to the floor, curled up, her head buried in her arms. She was shaking. Luna knelt down beside her.

“Hermione, don’t. We don’t know that he’s dead. We don’t know that he’s even gone to Voldemort.”

A sob escaped the bundle that was Hermione. Luna tugged at her shoulders until she raised her head.

“That’s right,” she said, pulling Hermione towards her. “Come on, do you really think Harry’s dead? It’s _Harry_.”

Hermione gave a little laugh and wept into Luna’s shoulder. Ron sat down next to them, blowing his own nose and rubbing Hermione’s back. At last she stopped crying.

“You really think he might not be dead?”

“I think Voldemort would soon tell us if he was,” said Luna.

“That’s true,” Hermione admitted.

“Is there anything he might be doing instead?” she asked them both. “Something important, maybe?”

“Oh!” Hermione gave a little cry. “Ron! The memory! He must be looking at the memory!”

“Oh yeah.” Ron exhaled with relief. “Thank Merlin.” He turned his wrist to look at his watch, and frowned. “Except we got back here about an hour and a half ago. It can’t have been that long a memory, can it?”

“Harry Potter is dead!”

Hermione jumped. Ron let out a shrill cry, as did many people around the Great Hall. Luna closed her eyes as she had when he had spoken to them before the battle. Voldemort’s voice, filled with glee, informed them that Harry had been killed, killed like a coward as he fled Hogwarts, that his death meant that the battle was over and that a new world would be built in Voldemort’s image.

Afterwards, there was silence. Luna, Hermione and Ron stared at one another in blank horror. Not a single person spoke in the Great Hall and the silence stretched on, minute after minute after minute. Luna could feel the stone floor beneath her knees, Hermione’s warm hand in hers, Ron’s damp one in her other one, and could think of nothing to say. When someone clapped their hands, they all jumped.

Professor McGonagall was standing tall, framed in the archway of the open doors that led to the Entrance Hall.

“I do not know what has happened,” she said. She had amplified her voice again, so that it easily reached every corner of the Great Hall. “Though I am certain that Harry Potter was not killed in the manner Lord Voldemort describes. Perhaps he has not been killed at all. But even if he has, we can still fight on. We can continue to resist, and if Voldemort himself comes here, perhaps we can even defeat him.”

“Perhaps we can,” whispered Hermione, who was staring at McGonagall as though she was a lifeline. She looked at Ron. “There’s only the snake left.” He nodded, but McGonagall was speaking again.

“We have suffered very great casualties,” she said. “Although nothing like so bad as He-Who- Voldemort claims. And I believe, I truly believe, that we have a chance. It would only take one spell, one piece of great good luck, and Voldemort might be dead before the sun rises. However, I do not wish to force anyone into fighting who is not willing. To do so would be the action of a Death Eater. Therefore, I call for a vote. If you believe that attempting to defeat Voldemort and his followers here and now is worth the risk, please walk to the left side of the Great Hall.” She waved a hand to indicate the side she meant. “If you believe that the risk is too great and that we would be wiser to surrender for now and regroup, please walk to the right side of the Hall.”

People were moving before she had even finished her speech. Without a word, Luna, Hermione and Ron rose, their hands still linked with Hermione in the centre, and moved towards the left side of the Hall.

“Luna,” whispered Hermione as they went. “We have to kill the snake. Voldemort’s snake. It’s a… well, it would take too long to explain now, but if we can kill the snake, we can kill Voldemort. We really can. I swear it.” She paused and swallowed hard. “If Harry’s dead, then you knowing means there’s still three of us.”

Luna squeezed her hand and murmured,

“Kill the snake. I understand.”

The majority of the voters were on the left side with the three of them, though she saw Hortense – where was Cherry? – over on the right side and waved. Hortense waved back but didn’t smile. She had a dramatic looking black eye.

Once everyone had decided where they stood, Professor McGonagall spoke again.

“So, we fight,” she said heavily. “Our previous escape route has been destroyed, so if you do not wish to fight, I think the safest course is to leave the school through one of the side doors and make your way to the back entrance. I am sorry, very sorry indeed, that I cannot guarantee your safety, but neither will I force you to fight.”

“They should be made to fight,” growled Ron under his breath. But Luna shook her head.

“No. That isn’t fair, Ron. You weren’t even here for most of it, so don’t judge the ones who leave.”

But most of the people on the right side of the Hall were remaining, looking unhappy but determined. Hortense, Luna saw, was one of them. She’d finally spotted Cherry, too, standing at the other end of the crowd on Luna’s side of the Hall. Neville and some of the other Gryffindors were near her.

“I am going to leave the castle by the front doors,” McGonagall was saying. “And try to ascertain what has happened and what Lord Voldemort is doing now. I suspect that he and his Death Eaters will be coming to the castle, however. All who wish to follow me are welcome to do so.”

Naturally, Luna, Hermione and Ron were right behind her. She even gave them a brief, grim smile as she turned and swept through the Entrance Hall towards the big oak front doors.

And then Professor McGonagall screamed.

Still hand in hand with Hermione, Luna ran towards her, bursting through the doors and rushing down the steps.

Hermione screamed. Ron screamed. Ginny, right behind them, screamed. Luna’s eyes scanned the rows of Death Eaters, and then her heart leapt, because Harry was lying limp in Hagrid’s arms. The scream rose up and forced itself from her throat, though it went unheard. The Death Eaters were responding to the cries of despair with their own shouts of triumph and laughter.

Luna didn’t really care about them. She could only stare at Harry, thin, unmoving, a little pathetic. She couldn’t see his face properly but she imagined it must be calm. It seemed that he had, after all, gone willingly to his death.

There was a pressure on her hand, and it took her a moment to realise it was Hermione, squeezing. She looked quite desperate but leaned to speak into Luna’s ear.

“The snake,” she breathed. “It’s right there.”

And so it was, coiled around Voldemort’s shoulders like a living scarf, though Luna couldn’t think of a way of getting to it. Not yet.

It was at that moment that Neville plunged forward, bumping her aside as he ran, wand outstretched and then blasted from his grasp before he could cast a single spell.

“Neville! No!” Luna shouted, though her voice was drowned out.

It was horrible. Voldemort made a huge show out of mocking and humiliating Neville, while Luna and the others stood there and watched, frozen. The sorting hat flew from a window. Voldemort was boasting about how Slytherin would be the only house, and then he put the hat on Neville’s head and set it on fire.

Now Luna ran, wand outstretched, screaming a spell, not caring if she died in the attempt to save him. They all seemed to have had the same thought. Buffeted by people on either side of her, her spell went wide, but more spells were shooting everywhere. The battle had begun again, and others were joining them. Centaurs, charging from behind the Death Eaters, and Hagrid’s giant brother, thundering around the corner of the castle.

Luna kept her eyes fixed on Neville, trying to get to him through the sudden chaos, and that meant she saw everything. He caught the Sorting Hat as it fell off his head. He drew a shining silver sword out of it. He swung the sword in one great, smooth blow, slicing off the head of Voldemort’s enormous snake. It flew through the air and vanished in the fighting crowd.

“Nice one, Neville!” she shouted, grinning, and saw his head turn and flash her an answering grin before he began to lay about him with sword and wand.

She too was fighting again in earnest. She realised that reinforcements had come to back up the struggling survivors. There were shopkeepers whom she recognised from Hogsmeade and even Diagon Alley, people’s parents, Muggleborns she hadn’t seen in nearly a year. Even some of the Slytherins had made a return, which she supposed meant they were the ones who had fetched the reinforcements.

Even with the reinforcements, the fighting did not let up. Luna found herself pressed into the Entrance Hall as everyone swarmed inside to shelter from the giants, and then into the Great Hall, where the injured were still being treated up on the dais and the dead still lay in a row, the fighters duelling around them. Madam Pomfrey and some of her helpers were protecting their patients with strong shield charms.

The sky was getting lighter every moment they fought. Luna shot a stunning spell right into a masked Death Eater’s face and he crumpled.

“Hello there, little girl!” hissed a harsh voice, and she ducked aside just in time to avoid another cruciatus from Bellatrix Lestrange. She fired spell after spell at Bellatrix from the floor, but it only made her laugh and fire another cruciatus curse. Luna didn’t manage to dodge that one, but the pain only lasted a moment.

“Stupefy! Diffindo! Stupefy! Incarcerous!” Hermione was yelling. Ginny was at her side, screaming curses and hexes, giving Luna time to stumble back onto her feet again.

They weren’t strong enough. The three of them were just about keeping Bellatrix at bay, but it was only a matter of time. And then, just as a Killing Curse missed Ginny by half an inch, there was a scream of rage from behind them.

“NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!”

Mrs. Weasley swept Luna, Hermione and Ginny out of the way and began to duel Bellatrix. Luna watched, open-mouthed, as spells flew past her. She had no idea what half of them even were. The ground itself was growing hot and cracking under her feet, and she moved backwards in response to an insistent tug from Hermione. Even the Death Eaters were faltering now, lowering their wands to watch the duel.

Or rather, the duels. As she followed Hermione backwards to press up against the wall, Luna realised that there was another duel going on. Mrs. Weasley and Bellatrix were fighting. And Voldemort himself was fighting, duelling Kingsley Shacklebolt, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Slughorn – he really had made his choice, thought Luna. Perhaps it was a good omen for Slytherin’s future.

The duels were brutal and desperate. Nobody else was fighting now, just watching breathlessly. And then, with odd suddenness, Bellatrix Lestrange was dead. The Great Hall seemed to hold its breath. The other duel ended instantly with McGonagall, Slughorn and Kingsley all blasted aside with one curse from Voldemort’s wand, and Voldemort screamed. His wand pointed straight at Molly Weasley, who stood there, facing him.

“Protego!”

And there was Harry, flinging off his invisibility cloak and telling everyone not to help him. Hermione darted forward to snatch the cloak up and stuff it down the front of her robes before any of the Death Eaters could get hold of it, but otherwise, Harry and Voldemort were the only ones moving.

As the conversation between Harry and Voldemort went on and on and on, revelation after revelation emerging, they all simply stood there. Everyone knew this was it. The moment where it would all be decided. And still they talked. Harry called Voldemort Tom, and told him that his, Harry’s, sacrifice was keeping the defenders of Hogwarts safe. At one point he even asked Voldemort to consider remorse. That was sweet, thought Luna, and very Harryish. Voldemort, of course, just laughed.

And eventually, just as the sun’s edge began to show through the windows and in the cracked but still functioning ceiling, it happened.

“Avada Kedavra!” shouted Lord Voldemort, and,

“Expelliarmus!” shouted Harry.

Just as Harry had predicted, just as he had told Voldemort, Voldemort’s wand went spinning away from him, and Harry caught it, and Voldemort’s body sprawled on the floor, dead.

There was dead silence. To Luna, it seemed to stretch forever as she stared at the body of the man they had all feared for years. It was broken by cheers and shouts. Hermione leapt forward to fling her arms around her best friend, Ron a mere half a pace behind her. Luna followed a second later. one arm around Harry, the other round Hermione’s waist. More and more people piled in, Molly Weasley sobbing again, Hagrid roaring his delight, everyone yelling in pride and triumph.

Things calmed down after a while, of course. There was still work to be done. The bodies of the dead were moved to the room where once, five and half years ago, Luna had stood listening to Professor McGonagall welcoming her and her classmates to Hogwarts. A list of the dead was made and the door stood open. Voldemort’s body alone was set in a smaller chamber off that one, so that the mourners would not have to see him.

The grievously injured, of whom there were still many, were transferred to St. Mungo’s, and Luna found herself once again assisting Madam Pomfrey in healing the lesser wounds. There were fewer this time.

In the meantime, others were making lists of those who had been sent to St. Mungo’s, repairing the most dangerous of the damage, contacting the families of the students who had remained at Hogwarts, and doing other necessary work. But eventually, they all found themselves, quiet and tired, back in the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall – “Luna, we’ve fought side-by-side and won. Please call me Minerva.” – summoned the four long tables from wherever they had been put, and everyone sat down.

Luna found herself among a group of Ravenclaws. Cho and Marietta were across the table from her, Hortense and Cherry on her left. None of them were talking much. They were covered with dust and blood, bruised and exhausted and hardly able to believe or understand their victory. Luna didn’t feel much like talking, either. She propped her head up on one hand and sat there, letting things happen around her.

The house elves, who had fought alongside everyone else, appeared from the kitchen with enormous platters of whatever food could be served immediately, or almost so, and then joined the wizards at the tables. As people parted and moved, Luna caught a glimpse of blonde two tables away. The Malfoys were sitting, hunched and nervous, at what would usually be the Ravenclaw table. When Draco caught her eye, Luna offered him a small smile.

Then she spotted Hermione at the table beyond the Malfoys. She was with the Weasleys, an arm around Ron. Luna decided not to join them. She knew and liked the Weasleys, but she hadn’t been friends with them for years as Hermione had. Only with Ginny, who was leaning against Bill with her eyes closed, Fleur stroking her hair gently. Neville was nearby, still receiving congratulations and trying to be gracious about it but mostly looking pink and awkward.

Luna closed her eyes for a moment, not wanting to have to look at the battle-worn faces, but opened them again as someone sat down beside her.

Harry looked dreadful. She had caught glimpses of him every now and again as she had worked, and each time he had been surrounded by an admiring crowd, all wanting to thank him, congratulate him or just touch him. He was filthy and covered in bruises, scratches and blood, but worse than that, he looked utterly drained. His face was greyish and his eyes seemed too big for it. His hand shook as he rested it on the table.

“I’d want some peace and quiet, if it were me,” she said.

“I’d love some,” he said, his voice rough and strained. Luna nodded.

“I’ll distract them all. Use your cloak.” She pointed towards the biggest window and cried in a ringing voice, “Ooh look! A Blibbering Humdinger!”

When she looked back, Harry was gone.

“What on earth are you going on about, Luna?” complained Cherry. Luna shrugged.

“Thought I saw a Blibbering Humdinger,” she said. “It wasn’t, though.”

She glanced across to the distant table where Hermione was sitting. She was still there, nodding soberly at something Ron had said, or perhaps Percy, who was on her other side. As Luna watched, she and Ron both looked round sharply and, after a moment, spoke to the Weasleys on either side of them, then got up and walked away. Good. That meant Harry had found them and asked for their company. As she left the Great Hall, Hermione looked back over her shoulder, found Luna, and gave her a wan smile and a little wave. Luna waved back.

Turning her attention back to her own table, she realised that most people had served themselves and were already eating. She spooned some curry and rice onto her plate and began to eat hungrily. It seemed like forever since she’d had any food.

“Come on, Cho,” Marietta was saying, across the table from her. She was rubbing Cho’s back anxiously. “You need to eat something. It’s been hours. A whole battle.”

“I’m not hungry,” said Cho faintly, hunched over and staring down at her empty plate.

“I know, but you’ll feel better if you eat something.” Marietta piled steaming chips onto Cho’s plate, and Luna reached over to add a healthy dollop of mayonnaise. Chips with mayonnaise were Cho’s favourite. Marietta gave her a smile.

“Yeah, you’ve got to eat,” said Hortense through a mouthful of curry. “It’s all over now! We won! It’s time to celebrate!”

Cherry elbowed her hard in the ribs and she desisted.

“It is over, though,” added Cherry. “And Marietta’s right. Some food will make you feel better.”

Tears leaked down Cho’s cheeks.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Come on,” said Marietta. She picked up a chip, swirled it around in the mayonnaise, and held it to Cho’s lips. Cho sighed and ate the chip. Marietta gave her another.

Luna watched. If she hadn’t been so tired, she might have smiled. Her eyes moved to Marietta’s face. The scars there had faded so much now that they were barely visible, but even so, Luna was slightly surprised that she had stayed to fight. She wondered whether she would have done so herself under the same circumstances. Those spots were something she was going to have to talk to Hermione about, though not today.

“God, I’m knackered,” said Hortense as Marietta handed Cho a third chip. “I’m going to ask mum if she wants to go home. She’s around here somewhere. You coming, Cherry?”

Cherry nodded.

“Take care, Luna,” she said, and leaned down to hug her.

They weren’t the only ones. Others were drifting out of the Great Hall in pairs and small groups. Parents and family members were coming in, staring about them as they saw the devastation the battle had wrought. Luna saw a small, plump man enter beside Professor – Minerva. There were tears streaming down his face, but he put his arms around Dennis Creevey when he ran up, holding him tightly. Minerva patted him gently on the shoulder as she led him into the ante-room where the dead lay. Luna looked away.

“What are you going to do, Marietta?” said Cho. She had eaten nearly all the chips now, most of them under her own steam, and was looking at her friend worriedly.

“My parents didn’t come,” said Marietta. Luna remembered that her mum still worked for the Ministry and her stomach tightened in sympathy.

“Want to come home with us?” said Cho. “You can stay as long as you need. Or my mum can drop you off if you want to go home.”

“I’ll come home with you,” said Marietta. “Thanks.”

“What about you, Luna? Your dad’s not here, is he?”

Luna shook her head. The Order had managed to discover that her father was in Azkaban, but they didn’t have the resources to attack the prison.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’ll be all right, though.”

They said their goodbyes and left, hand in hand.

Now alone, Luna began to notice how very tired she was. Her back was starting to throb again, too, and her feet ached, and all the little cuts and bruises were hurting. Vaguely, she wondered what had happened to her boots. Then she wondered how long Harry would need Hermione and Ron for. She had meant to wait for Hermione to return, but she was so tired.

She got up and walked slowly across the room. In the Entrance Hall, she met Professor Flitwick hurrying towards the Great Hall.

“Luna!” he exclaimed. “Still here?”

“Yes,” she said. “I thought I’d go and see what state the dormitories are in.”

“Ah, of course, your father isn’t around, is he?” Flitwick looked sympathetic and patted her arm. “Unfortunately, the Ravenclaw dormitories aren’t accessible just now. All the windows in the common room and the dormitories exploded and there’s glass everywhere.”

Luna blinked.

“Oh,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” said Flitwick, sympathetically. “The Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Slytherin dormitories are all still intact. You’d be very welcome to find a bed there. Or I’m sure we can find someone to take you in until your father is able to come home.”

“It’s all right,” she said quickly. “I’ll sleep in one of the other dormitories.”

She had thought, briefly, of finding Bill or Fleur, knowing that they would welcome her back with open arms. But the Weasleys would want to be together in their grief and Luna would only be an intrusion. Perhaps if she went to the Gryffindor dormitory, Hermione would end up there too, eventually. And if not, they’d find each other again. It would all be all right.

All the same, Luna suddenly felt very lonely.

“If you’re sure,” said Flitwick, peering into her face with a worried expression, but when she conjured a smile he patted her arm once more and hurried off into the Great Hall.

With tears prickling at the backs of her eyes – all those people dead, and it was the destruction of the Ravenclaw dormitory that made her want to cry – Luna climbed the stairs slowly and painfully. With every step, her feet hurt more. Her back throbbed and burned as she leant on the bannister. Her head was pounding. She felt like crumpling to the floor and staying there, perhaps forever.

She was walking along a corridor, eyes half closed, dust and broken things and splashes of blood moving past her vision, when she felt hands on her. She straightened up, a jolt of panic rushing through her, spinning away from the touch.

“Sorry! I’m sorry, Luna!”

That was Hermione. Luna leant against a crumbling wall, her breath ragged, and looked at her. She looked utterly exhausted and still had a deep cut down one cheek that was only half healed. Luna could remember the slash of Bellatrix Lestrange’s wand that had done it. She pushed herself up from the wall and moved towards her, arms outstretched.

For a moment it was just the two of them, arms tight, eyes wet, hands grasping to hold each other closer. Then Harry and Ron were there too, their arms going round the girls, cheeks resting against cheeks, lungs still gasping for air or rasping with sobs. Harry was pressed against Luna’s back, making the pain shoot right through to her arms and hands, but it was worth it to be held by them all.

She didn’t know how long they stood that way, but eventually, by some silent, mutual consent, they all broke apart, though the fingers of Hermione’s right hand curled around those of Luna’s left. Harry gestured back towards the stairs.

“I have to go and find Ginny. And everyone. Are they still here, do you know?”

Luna nodded.

“They were when I left. I think they’re waiting for you and Ron.”

“I just want to tell them sorry, then I’ll leave them – leave you all to –” His eyes slid towards Ron unhappily.

“Shut up, Harry,” said Ron. “You’re not leaving, you’re coming home with us. Obviously. And you’re not apologising, either.”

Harry’s eyes were wet.

“Thanks, mate,” he muttered.

“Are you two coming, too?” said Ron, turning to Luna and Hermione. “You know you’re welcome.”

Hermione shook her head.

“You go,” she said, and leant forward to kiss Ron’s cheek. He nodded.

“All right. Come on, Harry.”

Luna watched the two boys as they started down the stairs, then heaved a sigh.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go with them?” she said. “You’d probably be more comfortable at the Burrow than here.”

Hermione shook her head again.

“I think they’ll want to be just family, at least for a few days. I love the Weasleys, but I’m not family to them in the same way that Harry is.” She turned to Luna and kissed her lips gently. “And honestly, I just want to be warm and with you, and sleep.”

“You’re always warm,” murmured Luna, leaning into her. “Professor Flitwick said the Ravenclaw dormitory isn’t in a good state at the moment, but Gryffindor is all right.”

They went on down the corridor, still hand in hand.

“How are you?” said Hermione, as they wearily climbed a staircase. “We haven’t had a chance to talk since it ended.”

“I’m all right. No, I’m not. I don’t think any of us are going to be all right for quite a while. But we’re alive.”

“Yes. I wasn’t really sure that was going to happen.”

“Me neither.”

Luna pulled Hermione closer and put her arm round her waist. Hermione put hers around Luna’s, and Luna flinched.

“Oh, you’re hurt.”

Luna tried to say that she was fine, but Hermione was already behind her, looking, her fingers gentle, and then casting a spell that made the pain slide away. Luna gasped in relief.

“Thank you.”

The door to the Gryffindor common room stood open, the occupant of the portrait that usually guarded it vanished. They climbed through and crossed the common room, Luna too tired to take much of it in except that it was bright and cosy, decorated in the Gryffindor colours and filled with furniture as worn and shabby as that in the Ravenclaw common room.

“This school has too many stairs,” said Luna, as they climbed a spiralling set towards the dormitories. Hermione huffed a laugh.

“Yeah.”

And then she was pushing a door open and pulling Luna inside. Like Luna’s dormitory in Ravenclaw, this room was large and round, with five large four-poster beds standing at regular intervals around it. There were decorations all around the room, but it was easy to see which was Hermione’s bed, for it was empty and neatly made, with only a rather scruffy poster of Mary Shelley above it, which she must not have taken home with her when she left at the end of last year.

Hermione perched on the side of the bed to pull her shoes off, while Luna pushed the blankets back and, after a moment’s thought, cast a warming charm on the bed before crawling beneath the blankets.

“Shouldn’t we shower first?” said Hermione. “We’re filthy.”

Luna, having burrowed down into the cosy interior of the bed and surrounded herself with blankets, propped herself up on one elbow.

“Hermione,” she said patiently. “You’ve robbed a bank, flown a dragon to Scotland and fought a battle since the last time you slept. Get into bed, you ridiculous girl.”

Hermione choked a little laugh and obeyed, wriggling in and tucking the blankets securely around her, then closing the curtains to block out the daylight. There was easily enough space for the two of them, probably for a third if they’d wanted one. Hermione squirmed closer to Luna so that they were nose-to-nose,. Their hands found each other and for a while they just lay there.

“I feel as though we ought to talk,” said Hermione. “But I don’t know what to say.”

“We can talk tomorrow,” said Luna. She kissed the tip of Hermione’s nose. “Now is the time for sleeping.”

Hermione smiled a small, tired smile.

“All right. You’re the boss.”

“Yes, I am,” said Luna, kissing her again.

Hermione turned over to nestle her back against Luna’s front, the way they’d slept during those last nights at Shell Cottage. Luna moved closer so that they were touching everywhere they could, their legs entwined, and tucked her arm around Hermione’s waist. Hermione caught her hand as she always did, and clasped it in her own warm ones.

“Good night,” said Luna.

“It’s not night,” said Hermione.

Luna giggled into her neck.

“Good night,” she said again. There was a pause.

“Good night,” said Hermione.


End file.
